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DESIGN OF THE AIRPORT As with the building of the Gautrain and the 2010 stadia, the architects and engineers travelled to many countries looking for lessons that needed to be learnt. For the King Shaka Airport, the opportunity to plan a building that was to be built from scratch was most welcome as the provision for expansion was an automatic part of the initial plan. “It’s in the expansion that most existing airports have suffered enormous growing pains,” comments Victor Utria of Osmond Lange Architects. “No one predicted the extent of the future demand and how passenger volumes would exert so much pressure on the facilities. It was interesting to see that, although they all have to perform exactly the same functions, no two airports are the same. With the planning of the King Shaka International Airport, we had the luxury of being able to plan for expansion in an orderly fashion. That being said, there is no way of knowing how changes in technology will take airport design off onto a different tangent in the future.” Due to the sheer size of the project, the design responsibilities were split amongst the five design firms in the consortium. Durban-based NSM Designs were tasked with the planning for the cargo terminal, while Ruben Reddy Architects handled the passenger terminal airside corridor, the cooling towers complex and the external urban fabric that encompassed the roads, parking areas and pedestrian walkways. Mthulisi Msimang Architects from Pietermaritzburg handled the multi-storey parkade and office building, while Shabangu Architects from Johannesburg was responsible for the car rental facilities, the control tower and most of the support buildings. Osmond Lange Architects & Planners handled
the co-ordination as well as the design of the passenger terminal building and the retail facilities. “An airport in its entirety is a machine and all of the different parts are equally important to ensure that the airport functions efficiently,” says Utria of the split of responsibilities. Certainly, as a mere passenger, it is difficult to understand everything that is involved in the running of such a large facility. This is indeed why airports take such a long time in the planning process. “Durban Airport took 30 years to completion once the site was identified. Heathrow’s Terminal 5 took 40 years to completion. In that time, one hopes that air travel, as one knows it, hasn’t changed too dramatically.”
KING SHAKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TIMELINES 6 June 2007
R 7.2bn design & construction contract awarded to the Ilembe Consortium
23 August 2007
Positive EIA (environmental impact assessment) record of decision (ROD) issued
30 September 2007
Ground breaking ceremony
31 August 2007
Site work commenced
30 September 2008
Control Tower topped out
30 June 2009
Terminal Building topped out
30 October 2009
Runway will be completed
First quarter 2010
Durban International Airport, will be decommissioned. New International Airport will be commissioned
29 April 2010
Contractual completion