The Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed Terminal 2 at India’s Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru has opened to passengers. Inspired by the ‘garden city’ heritage of Bengaluru, the designers describe the airport terminal as “a serene multimodal transit hub that radically reimagines the airport experience.”
Designed in collaboration with landscape architects Grant Associates and designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla (AJSK), SOM’s vision for a “terminal in a garden” sought to heighten the presence of nature in the airport experience. The main terminal block, housing check-in, immigration, security, retail, arrivals, and baggage claim, is separated from the terminal’s departure gates by a 295-foot-wide, multilevel “forest belt” housing native plants, pathways, and bamboo-clad, multistory pavilions.
“For Terminal 2, SOM’s design inverts every expectation of how an airport can look and feel,” said SOM Managing Partner Laura Ettelman about the scheme. “With a focus on the passenger, we have created a rich, sensory experience.”
Elsewhere, the terminal’s interior design includes hanging plants and skylights to “complete the space with rich, sensory detail,” alongside bamboo materials and custom furnishings clad in ivory brown granite, umbered red bricks, and traditionally woven rattan. “The garden design reminds travelers of the rich landscape scenery of the verdant city,” SOM notes.
The terminal’s structural system and rectilinear form are designed with flexibility to accommodate changes over time as the city grows. All terminal gates are equipped to handle single wide-body aircraft for international flights or two narrow-body aircraft for domestic flights, meaning the terminal can alternate between 12 wide-body gates and 28 narrow-body gates. The scheme can also expand to 20 wide-body gates in the future.
Among the scheme’s sustainability credentials is pre-certified LEED Platinum from the US Green Building Council, the largest terminal in the world to be awarded the accolade, alongside Platinum certification from the Indian Green Building Council. ‘In addition to the visible extensive outdoor areas, the terminal implements numerous sophisticated sustainable innovations, enabling the terminal to run entirely on renewable energy,” SOM explains. “The abundant vegetation uses water that is harvested on site and the indoor waterfalls cool the interior environment.”
The 2.7 million-square-foot terminal has increased the airport’s annual passenger capacity by 25 million, and will soon be accompanied by a 1.3 million-square-foot multi-modal transit hub to connect the airport to Bengaluru city. The hub, comprising a two-level, T-shaped form, will merge public transit with outdoor retail, event, and entertainment areas.
News of the scheme comes one week after SOM shared photographs of their new Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, MA. Earlier in December, meanwhile, the firm was selected to design a major EV manufacturing plant for Rivian in Georgia.
2 Comments
Brilliant design by both SOM and Grant Associates. Benchmark "Terminal in Garden" adding green feather to Garden city of India Bangalore.
Thank you for this great opportunity, It was fun working with both great teams to deliver the key component Landscape. Floral diversity rich terminal one of its kind. Watch the fun what goes behind the scene.
A unique concept and stunning design by SOM and Grants, A vertical greenery and hanging greenery with bamboo structures are key attractions. The hanging Greenery and green walls looks mesmerizing. Even though space design, material selection and use of natural light for landscape seems very interesting, I was personally very disappointed with the softscape workmanship quality. I wonder is this what intended by Grant? It may look great for ordinary people but architects and engineers like us can easily make out many execution blunders.
Recently been there and was very disappointed with the overall planting works. There is no theme or intend behind planting scheme, seems like everything is just dumped. Starting from access road to interior of airport, everything is just scattered and there is no connectivity at all. The old road with the wave pattern was much more beautiful and welcoming.
Most of the foreign plants inside the terminal building were in bad shape and one of the gardening staff told us that many of these plants have already died and were chopped off. We also came to know that the Landscape head was sacked by company due to this and large corruption in development works. No other country has got flora & fauna as beautiful as India, then why do they need to display foreign plants which are not sustainable in Indian conditions. Instead of using fancy looking foreign plants they should have selected native plants which can sustain for a long period. This is not a sustainable landscape by any angle.
The big wall and waterfall after security check look horrible, poor display of workmanship. Very poor drainage system and there is a stagnant water in many planter boxes. The airport should have hired skilled, experienced and professional staff for such a world class project. Seems like everything is executed by layman who has no taste of design and planting.
Hope the greenery and charm of Bangalore airport continues to shine for next few decades and we don't get to see artificial plants in coming years!
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