Western Sydney International Airport opens its doors to passengers this Sunday, revealing a terminal designed to bring the experience of the Australian landscape indoors.
The terminal's signature feature is its wave-like ceiling, designed to dapple natural light deep into the building. The concept was born from a 2018 walk through eucalypt forest on the site by COX Architecture principal David Holm and Zaha Hadid Architects director Cristiano Ceccato.
"I was telling him about the idea about gum trees. ... The leaves fall, but it is the bark that is actually changing. He was fascinated by that," Holm recalled of the walk. "Where the ceiling undulates and the light that dapples through it, the idea is walking through an Australian eucalypt forest."
COX and Zaha Hadid won the international competition for the terminal design a year later, working with Indigenous design consultant Carol Vale from Murawin. Woods Bagot realised the concepts as delivery architect for builder Multiplex.
Unusually, international arrivals are on the terminal's highest level, with views of the Blue Mountains. The floor plan is split so that natural light reaches both the departures area and the baggage hall, intended to buoy passengers' spirits after a long flight.
Ceccato said the terminal offers a "more human experience" than larger airports, avoiding the overwhelming scale and retail focus of mega-airports. "Building it with these smaller terminals gives you an opportunity of having a human understandable scale," he said.
The $6 billion terminal is the first of four planned, with a long-term capacity of more than 80 million passengers a year. Holm dismissed a past warning from former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce about creating a "Taj Mahal," calling the building a "very sensible built-form outcome" that reflects Western Sydney.