Zaha Hadid Architects sees off rival UK stars to win £2.9bn Sydney airport

The company, working with local heavyweight Cox Architecture, was chosen from a five-strong shortlist to win the Western Sydney International Airport competition.

The other finalists were a team featuring US giant Gensler with Singapore’s Surbana Jurong, and airport specialist Pascall+Watson with Hassell.

The enormous 1,780ha project will create a second airport for Sydney capable of handling 10 million passengers a year in its first phase, which is due to complete in 2026. It will be named after Australian aviation pioneer Nancy Bird Walton.

Later phases will see the Arup-masterplanned airport, located 44km west of the city centre on former farmland, expanded to host up to 82 million annual passengers by 2060, making it Australia’s largest international gateway.

Zaha Hadid Architects and Cox will provide an ’overarching design for the entire airport precinct including design guidelines for future expansion’, as well as drawing up detailed design for first phase of the new terminal.

Cristiano Ceccato, the project director at Zaha Hadid Architects, said: ’The design is an evolution of Australian architecture past, present and future. It draws inspiration from both traditional architectural features such as the veranda, as well as the natural beauty of the surrounding bushland.’

The AJ100 practice, which signed up to the Architects Declare manifesto earlier his year, recently completed the world’s biggest airport in Beijing. The £8.8 billion Daxing International Airport, billed as the largest single-building airport terminal ever constructed, took less than five years to build. 

 Zaha Hadid Architects insists the Australian airport will incorporate ’sustainable design principles across the building’s architecture as well as its construction principles’, adding, ‘The project integrates the extensive use of daylight, natural ventilation and water recycling to create a modular, energy-efficient design.

‘The building is also sensitive to its local context, reflecting its natural landscape and the cultural heritage of its indigenous inhabitants.’

The finalists

• [WINNER] Zaha Hadid Architects and Cox Architecture 
• Designinc and Foster + Partners
• Architectus, Gensler, SAA Architects and Surbana Jurong
• Woods Bagot and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
• Hassell and Pascall+Watson