Built on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, Kansai airport has a mile-long high-tech terminal with 42 boarding gates. Designed to withstand earthquakes, the airport’s layout resembles a glider plane, with the terminal as the fuselage and boarding gates as its wings. A key design feature is its asymmetrical clear-span roof and smooth visible structure, an innovative design developed with structural engineers Peter Rice and Tom Barker. Shaped to mimic the predicted airflow, avoiding bulky air ducts and ensuring efficient air circulation, blade-like deflectors guide the airflow and reflect natural light from skylights. Mobile sculptures by Susumu Shingu hang from the roof and move with the air currents. The roof structure consists of three-dimensional beams spanning 80 meters, supported by inclined columns. The boarding gates have glazed facades facing the runway, while their curved roofs slope downward toward the coastline to maintain an uninterrupted view from the control tower. The roof is clad with 82,000 identical steel panels supported on a steel structure that is visible inside the terminal.
