Artifact analysis of Thailand international airport

By Baiyoke Nateesuwan

“Suvarnabhumi”

Planning of a second international airport for Bangkok started in the early 1960s. The process was slow from the start: as early as 1968, critics were already charging that the project was "five to seven years" behind the main schedule. However, Suvarnabhumi officially opened at 03:00 on 28 September 2006, taking over all flights from Don Mueang (the first international airport).

THE NAME SUVARNABHUMI WAS CHOSEN BY KING BHUMIBOL ADULYADEJ (OUR RECENT KING) AND REFERS TO THE GOLDEN KINGDOM HYPOTHESISED TO HAVE BEEN LOCATED SOMEWHERE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA.

Let me name it as a Golden Kingdom

The building was designed by Helmut Jahn of Murphy / Jahn Architects. It was constructed primarily by ITO JV. The airport has the world's tallest free-standing control tower and the world's fourth largest single-building airport terminal

I am proud of my design

Suvarnabhumi Airport's main terminal roof is designed with structural elements and bays placed in a cantilevered, wavelike form to appear to "float" over the concourse beneath. This overall design principal was to express the former essence of the site, from which the water had to be drained before construction could begin. The eight composite 2,710-ton trusses supporting the canopy of the main terminal are essentially diagrams of the bending movements acting on them, with the greatest depth at mid-span and over the supports.

The integration of structural form into overall aesthetics is a phenomenon personally described by Helmut Jahn as "archi-neering". These integrations include works on the advanced long span lightweight steel trusses coupled with exposed pre-cast concrete structures, low e-coated glass facade system, three layer translucent membrane, integrated cooling, using water as a low-energy carrier, the thermal mass of concrete, and a displacement ventilation system with minimal air-changes.

The result of Helmut Jahn's vision is a structure with performance materials serve in their total composition and in use more than in their conventional roles. This maximizes daylight use in comfort with substantial energy life-cycle cost savings. The installed cooling system reduced up to 50% compared to a conventional system. A translucent membrane with three layers was developed to mediate between the interior and exterior climate, dealing with noise and temperature transmission, while still allowing natural flow of daylight into building.

A little bit about business

Suvarnabhumi is the sixteenth busiest airport in the world, sixth busiest airport in Asia, and the busiest in the country, having handled 53 million passengers in 2012 and is also a major air cargo hub, with a total of 96 airlines.

The airport inherited the airport code, BKK, from Don Mueang after the older airport ceased international commercial flights. A modern motorway no.7 connects the airport, Bangkok, and the heavily industrial Eastern Seaboard of Thailand, where most of the manufacturing for export takes place.

Suvarnabhumi

Don Mueang

On social networks, Suvarnabhumi is the world's most popular place where Instagram photographs were taken in 2012

The airport disseminate the news that their income profit is 6.4 million bath (Thai currency unit) which increase from last year by 4.3 million bath or increasing by 193.46 percent. The income profit also come from the air traffic, ticket purchase, and the business in the airport which has the money circulate for business for 222.74 million bath while last year they lose the money for 1.5 million bath

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