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Barajas International Airport
Location: Madrid
Architects: Richard Rogers Partnership, Estudio Lamella
Contractor: UTE Barajas (a joint venture of leading Spanish contractors)
Syphonics: Fullflow
Barajas Airport in Madrid is one of the largest European construction projects of this decade. The airport was built to create a new ‘hub’ located in Southern Europe to be used as a link between European and South American flights. Barajas Airport opened in 2005. Its four new runways accommodate 120 flights per hour and serve over 70 million passengers each year.
The development consists of three main buildings:
1. A car park with more than 9,000 parking spaces
2. The new Terminal Building (1,134m length)
3. The new Satellite Building which is two kilometres away from the Terminal Building which passengers can access via an underground train.
Stainless steel and aluminium were used for the structural elements of the building which gives a light and spacious feel. Stainless steel downpipes and aluminium outlets were used by Fullflow to ensure that the rainwater system was completely integrated with the building.
The new Terminal Building has a wing shaped roof area of 160,000m2. The roof consists of double curvature aluminium sections which are linked and each one is 54m wide and 72m long. The roof has 1,464 outlets in the valleys of each section and the rainwater is discharged through 72 downpipes. The majority of the collection pipes are installed horizontally in the hollow between the bamboo ceiling and the roof. Two Kilometres away from the Terminal Building is the Satellite Building which has a roof area of 76,900 m2 and is structurally similar to the Terminal Building. Although Madrid is not prone to storms, the syphonic rainwater system is designed to support 110mm of rain per hour if necessary.
The flexibility of Fullflow’s rainwater system has allowed the architects more freedom in the design of the project and using a syphonic system instead of a traditional gravity system reduced the number of downpipes and underground manholes needed.
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