Kansai Airport : A Timeless Vision.

The Kansai International Airport is located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay, 38 k.m. Southwest of Osaka Station, off shore of the cities of Sennan and Izumisano and the town of Tajini in Osaka Prefacture, Japan.

In the 1960s, when the Kansai region was rapidly losing trade to Tokyo, planners proposed a new airport near Kobe and Osaka. Osaka International Airport, located in the densely-populated suburbs of Itami and Toyonaka , was surrounded by buildings; it could not be expanded, and many of its neighbors had filed complaints because of noise pollution problems. Initially, the airport was planned to be built near Kobe, but the city of Kobe refused the plan, so the airport was moved to a more southerly location on Osaka Bay. There, it could be open 24 hours per day, unlike its predecessor in the city. Local fishermen were the only group to protest, but they were silenced by hefty compensation packages

It is one of the groundbreaking projects of 21st century was built on a manmade island. The Kansai International Airport (KIX) currently occupies an area of approximately 510 hectares of sea area off the shore of Senshu in Osaka Bay. In addition, a third phase of construction is planned for the future, which would increase the total area of the airport island to 1,300 hectares and increase the flights up to 300,000 a year with the addition of a third 3,500 meter auxiliary runway.

It is hoped that with the construction of the additional runways and facilities, the Kansai International Airport will become an international hub that will increase global economic and social activities, and play a positive factor in reflecting the economy of Osaka and the greater Kansai region.

Supported by Arup, Italian architect Renzo Piano designed the mile long elegantly arched terminal passenger terminal building at Kansai Airport at Osaka in Japan. Arup provided structural, mechanical, electrical and fire engineering services for the passenger terminal building, designed to accommodate 25 million passengers per year passing through a total of 41 aircraft parking bays. A unique feature of the structural design is the innovative differential settlement correction system which levels the floors of all facilities to mitigate the effects of any differential land settlement on the man made island on which the airport is situated. The KIX second phase construction involves the reclamation of land from 542 hectares of public waters northwest of the airport off the shore of Senshu. The second phase of construction incorporated a 4,000 meter runway parallel to the existing one. Results of the preliminary test and survey show that this phase of construction would be much more difficult than the first, as the work involves building the second runway over deeper water with softer ocean ground and with the projected time period for construction being only one year longer than the first phase. The construction started with the arrival of large crane ships for the placement of the 14 buoy light towers and several survey buildings to enclose the appropriated sea lot to be filled with sand. The entire west wall facing the sea is constructed of glass so that the progress of the construction can easily be seen from the airport island.

Piano’s competition model showed a terminal building with unmistakable huge wings to either side. No mere ornament, they would create the necessary perimeter to accommodate 41 airplane bays and support the passenger moving system, shuttling people along the wings to and from departure and arrival gates. The need for sightlines from the control tower to planes precluded an extruded geometry for the wings, which is why they swoop down and away from the main terminal building.

Piano envisaged a building that was easy and intuitive to navigate; and the result is a huge four-story canyon, extending the whole 300-meter length of the main terminal building, lit entirely by daylight. Here, the close teamwork of the architect and Arup’s mechanical engineers paid dividends. The canyon’s glass ceiling was intended to allow natural light to illuminate a bamboo grove and other plantings 26 meters below on the canyon floor. The choice of glass housings for the elevators, and glass walls on either side and along the concourse corridors complements the airy brightness and enhances the passenger experience. The practical benefit is a relatively low energy requirement in comparison with artificial lighting.

In the main terminal building, the open-air ducts that allow the air movement also act as light-reflecting panels suspended between the long arch trusses supporting the roof of the fourth-floor international departures area. This reflected lighting reinforces the direction of passenger movement, as the panels connect the canyon to the wings. At the far side a huge glass wall faces the aircraft stands, so when passengers look toward airside the full-length curved façade reveals aircraft and the runway beyond. Even the roof shape itself suggests skyward movement.

The roof design has an elegant curved geometry, which in turn is determined by the line of sight needed by the control tower. To avoid the complexity and expense associated with three-dimensional curved construction, the Arup team used ‘toroidal geometry,’ rotating a constant two-dimensional shape around a large inclined circle to create the curved design. This means that each of the cladding panels and steel components repeat throughout the length of the building, allowing standardization of components, therefore, easing construction and lowering costs.

The site itself raised huge issues for Arup’s structural engineers and seismic experts. The terminal building needed to cope with the predicted sinking each year of the manmade island, and the possibility of earthquakes. The team proposed a ‘jack-up system’ to raise or lower individual columns to cope with differential settlement. This innovative settlement correction system has proved an unqualified success, coping with a differential of up to 300 millimeters in the first two years alone.

Other architectural features include the world’s longest runway at one mile and the world’s longest truss bridge at 3750 feet. This airport is considered to be an excellent transit airport as well, with a hotel (the Nikko Hotel) located right on the airport grounds as well as a number of sleeping lounges and amenities to ensure that one’s layover time passes pleasantly and very comfortably. With first rate service in all categories as well as renowned customer service, this airport ranks year after year as one of the most enjoyable airport travel experiences worldwide. The KIX passenger terminal is a single four-storey building designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (Renzo Piano and Noriaki Okabe) and has a gross floor space of 296,043 square metres (3,186,580 sq ft). It is the longest airport terminal in the world, at a total length of 1.7 km (1.1 mi) from end to end. It has a sophisticated people mover system called the Wing Shuttle, which moves passengers from one end of the pier to the other.

The terminal's roof is shaped like an airfoil. This shape is used to promote air circulation through the building: giant air conditioning ducts blow air upwards at one side of the terminal, circulate the air across the curvature of the ceiling, and collect the air through intakes at the other side. Mobiles are suspended in the ticketing hall to take advantage of the flowing air.

The ticketing hall overlooks the international departures concourse, and the two are separated by a glass partition. During Kansai's early days, visitors were known to throw objects over the partition to friends in the corridor below. The partition was eventually modified to halt this practice.

Having met the exacting standards of Japan’s seismic building regulators, Kansai Airport faced its first test within a year of opening. The Kobe earthquake struck in January 1995, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, and its epicenter was just 20 kilometers away from the airport. The sliding joints in the building’s construction were entirely successful in protecting the terminal building and its occupants from the earthquake. Not only was the main building unscathed, but the cladding and the glass windows also remained intact. Just three years later, in 1998, the building survived a typhoon with wind speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour and three-meter storm surges.

Kansai has been marketed as an alternative to Narita Airport for international travelers from the Greater Tokyo Area. By flying to Kansai from Haneda AAirport and connecting to international flights there, travelers can save the additional time required to get to Narita: up to one and a half hours for many residents of Kanagawa Prefacture and southern Tokyo.