Beijing's Capital Airport Terminal 3
It took three years, nine months, and US$3 Billion to build Beijing Capital Airport's Terminal 3, Asia's largest freestanding structure and the world's largest airport terminal.
Beijing Terminal 3, which opened in March 2008, has capacity for 50 million passengers per year.The color scheme uses Chinese favorites red and yellow, said to reflect traditional Chinese architecture such as the forbidden city. The overall theme of the airport's third terminal building is the Chinese dragon.
Seen from above, the building looks like an elongated dragon clutching a pearl (the transportation centre) in huge jaws, whilst the glinting triangular skylights resemble a dragon's scales, the transport network resembles the dragons beard, and the long terminal building is the dragon's spine.
Inside Terminal 3, departing passengers can relax in an indoor garden in the traditional Chinese style and the whole terminal was designed in line with principles of feng shui, as well as maximizing use of natural light to reduce the need for lighting and heating.
This massive structure has an area of over 1 million square meters, or 10 million square feet. Beijing Capital Airport's Terminal 3 is larger than all of London Heathrow Airport's 5 terminals combined, and is so big that in bad light you can't see from one end to the other. The roof area alone is over 80 acres. Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3's mind-boggling baggage handling system cost US$240 million to construct, can handle 19,200 pieces of luggage per hour, and monitors baggage with over 200 CCTV cameras.
