T+L Design Awards 2009

Best Transportation
Beijing Capital International Airport, Terminal 3

Beijing, China. Designed by Foster + Partners

An epic building—the largest in the world—Norman Foster’s Terminal 3 represents a fundamental advance in airport design, combining wide-open navigability and awe-inspiring scale, natural light and clear sight lines. The structure is 14 million square feet and will accommodate 50 million passengers a year, and yet it’s spectacularly light on its feet, with a sloping roof canopy and subtle, shifting colors on the trusses—a celebration of air travel.