Design & construction
conscious of the land around it. From in-house recycling to a sustainable fuel centre, this promises to be an airport that keeps the paddies of Uttar Pradesh as pristine as can be expected for a site that’ll eventually handle 70 million passengers each year. Not, of course, that any of this is easy. In an industry accustomed to airports framed by steel and glass, integrating vernacular aesthetics into Noida requires both a thoughtful eye and elegant planning. That’s doubly true given Noida International’s strikingly global design team. Drawing in experts from as far afield as England and Norway, forced to collaborate in the midst of a pandemic, Noida is surely one of the world’s first Zoom airports. Be that as it may, this is a place that could soon have very real consequences for design in the physical world too – and not just on the edge of the Indian capital.
Leaning into green
Even decades after independence, air travel was largely unknown in India. Between a comprehensive railway network, limited foreign tourism and grinding rural poverty, a mere 2.6 million passengers flew here as late as 1970. But with the Indian economy exploding since the turn of the millennium, that number has soared. Just before the pandemic, in 2019, Indian airports carried nearly 170 million people, a figure the Indian government has said could reach 855 million by the middle of the next decade. This demand, in itself, begins to explain the thinking behind Noida International. The airport’s location matters too. About a 90 minute drive from the frantic heart of New Delhi, the site will be
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
ideally located to service the city’s ballooning suburbs, breezeblock and concrete satellite towns like Faridabad and Ballabhgarh. Combined with easy access to tourist centres like the Taj Mahal – and the rise of cheap domestic airlines like Akasa – and it’s easy to say why executives like Christoph Schnellmann are so excited. As the airport’s CEO puts it: “Noida has so much potential with wonderful investments and growth opportunities for investors looking to capitalise on the rising Indian economy.” To an extent, then, Noida International fits snugly into India’s broader economic miracle. But examine the details and it soon becomes clear that the airport is also startlingly different from the belching factories that often characterise the subcontinent’s developmental model.
Above: Noida’s environmental features are set to include a sustainable fuel farm.
Opposite: Noida and other Indian airports could carry 855 million people by the end of the decade.
“Noida has so much potential with wonderful investments and growth opportunities for investors looking to capitalise on the rising Indian economy.”
Christoph Schnellmann That’s clear enough when you start examining
Noida’s environmental features. Promising a sustainable fuel farm, visiting aircraft will be able to load up via several large tanks. Connected via an underground hydrant network, the system will be flexible enough to increase capacity for sudden arrivals. At the same time, Noida’s designers are putting great stock in recycling.
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Noida International Airport
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