Architecture Malaysia - Volume 22 issue 3 | June-July 2010

Topic : Architecture for Air Travel

Page : 044 - 049

Senai Airport Landside Commercial Expansion, Johor Bahru
Senai Airport started life in the seventies in a humble rectangular concrete framed building. In the mid eighties, it was remodeled into a terminal with a calculated capacity of 3 million passengers per year. A massive curved roof covered the two storey building and hooked over its frontage to create a covered drop off.

Senai Airport was privatized in 2004 and plans were soon under way to modernize its facilities. The arrival of Airasia, a budget regional airline, provided the impetus to embark on growth. By 2007, the airport was running out of commercial areas that plans to enlarge the terminal began to take shape. The current plan reflected the response to the architectural and planning challenges posed by the site.

The old building had an arrivals exit and a departures entrance at opposite ends of the building and they shared the same traffic lanes outside. The unique shape of the expansion was derived by combining the two entrances into one, so that all passengers moving in either direction had to pass through this newly formed market hall and out through one exit.
By squeezing the typically long terminal frontage to a point, two outdoor areas were created on either side of the curved walls. These areas have been molded to become outdoor piazzas offering a dynamic evening lifestyle adjoining the terminal. As extensions of the internal commercial areas, the façade is now broken down into openings and alcoves, removed from the hermetic facades of typical airports, introducing ‘street life’ to an airport.

Passengers enter the terminal through a 25m wide fully glazed front fitted with three doorways after coming under the network of covered walkways. The space inside immediately sweeps open with shops on both sides taking one through the massive roof lit hall and onto another frontage of shops cut up only the openings to the old terminal. There is a strong delineation between the old and new and this is deliberately done for structural reasons.

This new addition has the hallmarks of a commercial mall. Designed for small sized units, a anchor tenant, food and beverage units, a large central focus that is the display-promotional court, the passenger experience is the reverse of the airport diagram whereby the market hall is placed after passport control.

The client’s aim, is to not only serve passengers but the surrounding community in dire need of a shopping facility.All that remains is to craft the form that Hin Tan is apt to do, in steelwork of beautifully detailed connections, shapes and forms. Computer technology has played a big part in gluing all the parts together – from the main commercial wing with its delta shaped roof to the curved roof of the west wing which joins onto the angular section of the air conditioned link. Concrete to steel, and vice versa had been explored and detailed in three dimensions before they are finalized as tender drawings. The globalization of technology does not however mean same solutions globally, as we can see here is a solution that has addressed the massive rainfall and the discharge of the voluminous water, the shading of glass surfaces by large overhangs, and the letting in of ample daylight without the heat with low E coated double glazing. This low energy approach is marked by not needing artificial lighting during daylight hours, a service free ceiling, well insulated walls and keeping cool air at low level where it is required.

Light wood coloured cladding at high level internally and externally has given Aeromall a truly local flavour reminiscent of our traditional wooden architecture. The lessons of services integration learned early on have been carried out in this project that is bound to become an important piece of work.

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