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There’s something about international airports that makes every person feel like the main character – a kind of romance in the scale and anonymity. When the terminal is totally abandoned – a cavernously quiet, architecturally stunning space with far-reaching mountain views – that feeling is infinitely amplified. Thanks to a very special invite, that’s exactly what we experienced yesterday when we got a sneak peek around Sydney’s genuinely stunning new airport, which is on track to open towards the end of this year.
The word stunning is one that we’re guilty of throwing around a lot, but in this case it’s absolutely accurate. The architecture firm tasked with bringing the project to life (Sydney-based firm Cox Architecture) was encouraged to celebrate the local environment, resulting in a masterfully designed space framed by floor-to-ceiling windows opening up onto expansive views of the Blue Mountains. The mountain views are the show-stealers, but the nods to the local environment are woven the whole way through the design: the terrazzo tiled floors are studded with pebbles from the Nepean River, the tall, organically shaped pillars mimic the shapes of local tree trunks, and the walls are formed by carefully mismatched slabs of sandstone from a quarry in the Central Coast. On a more structural level, a lot of the stone used to form the foundations of the building came from the tunnelling of the Westconnex, and the beautiful aluminium suspended ceiling (the largest of its kind in Australia) was designed to mimic the undulating landscape of the Blue Mountains.
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Our tour of the airport began in the huge central check-in lounge: an intuitively designed space lined by 40 check-in kiosks and a row of bag-drop stations, which the team told us us are the world’s leading models. According to the team, the format of the space has been designed to make travelling seamless – with all kiosks enabled to operate for all airlines (international and domestic) and the design features (curved edges and warm, neutral tones) curated with ease and comfort in mind.
From there, we took the escalators up to the security screening space, with an additional security layer required for international departures (the domestic departures lounge will be open to non-passengers, so you can join your family for a pre-flight feed before you wave them off).
A glass aerobridge led us down onto the ‘apron’ (the tarmac section below the terminal, usually busy with luggage trucks and people in high-vis vests), where we look out onto the 3.7-kilometre runway and to the digital control centre (a super high-tech alternative to huge airport control towers, more on that here).
The international arrivals experience has been carefully considered, with the team citing a mission to ensure that the experience instantly grounds travellers with a sense of place. By locating the main 10 million passenger capacity terminal in the centre of the development, the team is promising that taxi times (from the runway to the terminal) will take no more than five minutes, and aerobridges will bring you straight into a glass-fronted room with the airport’s most impressive views.
The bones of the building are beautiful enough, but the interior touches keep carrying the torch – with chocolate brown and mossy green chairs (sourced from a Gosford-based company) carefully arranged to make the space feel comfortingly spacious. According to the team, the entire terminal has been designed to the specs of a Business Class lounge – and from my reclined position on a chic leather seat overlooking the runway, that claim checks out.
While it’s not fully complete (the restaurants and shops that will eventually keep us in Bloody Marys and burgers are yet to be installed), the space itself is pretty much ready to go, and from what we can see so far, it’s going to be a gloriously Sydney place to fly from.
You can learn more about the new airport (including estimated opening date, location, transport links and more) over here.
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