Works 31
Some 230 infrastructure and facilities-related projects are underway at Genève Aéroport, which is almost equal to the number of working days in a year! It must be said that an airport is an almost permanent building site because it has to maintain its facilities and constantly improve and develop them in preparation for future challenges.
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that investment is a significant item on the balance sheet. There was no exception to the rule in 2011, when Genève Aéroport invested over CHF 71 million. This was a welcome windfall for subcontractors faced with a gloomy economic environment.
Preparation of the East Wing
Unquestionably Genève Aéroport’s most important forthcoming project, the future East Wing took several steps in 2011. With construction work planned to start in 2012, the East Wing will, on completion, replace wide-body aircraft facilities built on a temporary basis in...1974. Due to enter service in 2015, the new building will be more welcoming, comfortable and convenient for passengers travelling on long-haul, wide-body aircraft. It will be more user-friendly and will feature contact aircraft parking positions (nosein, against the building), removing the need for passengers to be bussed to remote positions. It will also facilitate the management of flows, particularly of Schengen and non-Schengen passengers. In all it will have six wide-body aircraft positions, including three double spaces enabling two smaller aircraft to park in the same position. The number of boarding gates will remain the same as today.
To select the winning design for the East Wing, Genève Aéroport began by forming a body of experts comprising members internal and external to the airport and chaired by Professor Harry Gugger, architect and director of EPFL’s (a Lausanne-based technical university) architectural production laboratory. The decision was then taken to organise a selection procedure requiring the formation of multidisciplinary groups of agents comprising architects, civil engineers and
CVSE (heating-ventilation-sanitation-electricity) engineers. The five groups selected (out of 33 candidates from Europe and the US) each then prepared an architectural, technical and functional proposal on the basis of a parallel-studies warrant. At the end of this procedure, which of course respected the requirements of public procurement, Genève Aéroport chose a European group with a strong Geneva base. The group comprises: Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners; Jacques Bugna Architecture Workshop; and Ingérop Consultation and Engineering and its partners (Babel, Géos, EGC Chuard, Perrin & Spaeth, BA Consulting and Assystem). Among the many attractive aspects of their project are the strong image radiated by the building, its transparency, the quality of its spaces, its modular construction and its exemplary performance in terms of sustainability. The planned building will also have positive energy: it will produce more energy than it consumes.
Expansion of the fuel network
The kerosene used by aircraft parked at Geneva’s airport is piped from Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille. It is then stored in tanks at Vernier before again being transported through pipes to the airport. And there, beneath the apron, is an 8-kilometre fuel network to some 80 refuelling points. These enable aircraft fuel tanks to be filled without the need for tanker trucks.
Since the 80 positions were not being previously equipped with ‘pits’, Genève Aéroport’s fuel network was extended in 2011. This expansion created 14 additional refuelling points and new refuelling spaces for trucks. As a result, tanker trucks no longer need to cross this part of the apron, increasing safety and simplifying operations.