MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, and in collaboration with China Airport Planning & Design Institute Co., Ltd. and Beijing Institute of Architectural Design Co., Ltd. has won an international competition for the design of Terminal 3 of Changchun “Longjia” International Airport,  in China.

The project site has 177.6 hectares and a total building area of nearly 270,000 square meters. The terminal will contain 54 aircraft gates and is expected to accommodate 22 million passengers per year after completion, which will become the biggest air transportation junction of Changchun city and the entire Jilin Province which is one of the earliest manufacturing industrial metropolises with a population of 23 million.

The city is surrounded by rich natural resources, like dense forests that are well-known as the most significant in northeastern of China.
“The future large-scale transportation junction is first of all an important public space in the city. Art, synthesis, diversity, and humanity are all important.”
MA Yansong

The terminal building, designed by MAD Architects, adds a human-scaled space with a calming presence to the Airport, both from a distance and from within. As visitors approach the high-speed rail “Longjia” Station or the parking structure, they will be greeted by the terminal’s unique fan-shaped profile that resembles a floating feather — a nod to the aeroplanes that will be ascending and descending from its terminals throughout the day.

By adopting a three-fingered corridor structure surrounded by arcs, the terminal will maintain an overall harmonious layout in its connections to the T1 and T2 terminal areas while increasing the number of passenger seats near the aircraft. Upon entrance, passengers will encounter a large, uninterrupted ground floor that provides direct access to the subway, automobile road and other methods of transportation connecting the terminal to the larger site.

Additionally, passengers arriving without checked baggage will benefit from smart airport facilities such as self-service check-in machines and smart security checks. The overall spatial layout will save the land and reduce the amount of earthwork, while the roofline uses height differences to reflect the cross-connections of different transportation modes from above.


Rendering. Changchun Airport Terminal 3 by MAD Architects.
 
Rendering. Changchun Airport Terminal 3 by MAD Architects.

The subway station hall, in particular, is seamlessly integrated into the central space of the terminal building to reduce the number of transfers between the subway and the airport by reducing the distance between the terminal entrance and the east expansion station hall of “Longjia” Station to less than 200 meters. Given that nearly one-third of passengers have entered and exited the airport via high-speed rail since 2018, the intercity railway will become an increasingly important means of inbound and outbound transportation for Changchun Airport.

The terminal also reflects the charm of Changchun as a "Garden City'' through the creation of what the design team has referred to as a "garden airport." The exterior space area is characterized by forests, lakes, meadows, and undulating terrain, while the indoor garden system combines trees, ground covers, and water features to create a "cold zone garden" that reflects the local climate.

Natural light is brought into the departure hall through the feather-shaped roof to create a bright and warm interior space that provides much-needed sunlight to the garden spaces within. The structural system continues the rhythm of the building's skin to express the logic of force transmission, which converges toward the centre together with the skylight, guiding the direction of passengers naturally. The unique wooden ceiling also combines with the structure, skylight and ceiling to create a dynamic interior space.

The terminal’s approach to green design at an intimate scale is a response to the timeless human need for connection to human and plant life alike; all within a shape as light and airy as a feather floating in the breeze.

More information

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Architects
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MAD Architects. Principal Partners in Charge.- MA Yansong, DANG Qun, Yosuke HAYANO.
Associate Partners in Charge.- LIU Huiying.
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Consortium
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China Airport Planning & Design Institute Co., Ltd., Beijing Institute of Architectural Design Co., Ltd., MAD Architects.
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Project team
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MA Yansong, DANG Qun, Yosuke HAYANOLIU Huiying, Kin LI, SUN Shouquan, SUN Mingze, SONG Minzhe, WANG Fei, LU Zihao, XIAO Yuhan, CHEN Wei, CAO Xi, Yoshio FUKUMORI.
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China Airport Planning & Design Institute Team
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MU Tong, YAO Huilai, FENG Xiangling, SUN Yongxue, YAO Yuan, XU Junjie, ZHANG Bao, ZHANG Yan, SHEN Xin, QI Junjie, HAO Wenjia, LIU Zihao, XU Ke, LI Zhennan, FENG Mengyao, LI Xiong, ZHENG Guangshun, SHEN Yi, LU Xin, LI Henghui.
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Beijing Institute of Architectural Design Team
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WANG Xiaoqun, SHU Weinong, WANG Yizhi, LI Shaokun, SU Yao, WU Di, WANG Yisu, WANG Bin, REN Jie, ZHANG Zhongqi, ZHANG Linyi, CHEN Lin, GU Xianliang, MU Yang, FAN Shixing, WANG Hanmo, ZHANG Shizhong, YU Xinqiao, ZHANG Shirui, PAN Ming.
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Client
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Jilin Provincial Civil Airport Group Company.
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Area
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Terminal Site Area.- 177.6 hectares (1,776,000 m²).
Terminal Building Area.- 270,000 m².
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Location
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Changchun Airport Terminal 3. Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
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Beijing-born architect Ma Yansong is recognized as an important voice in a new generation of architects. Since the founding of MAD in 2004, his works in architecture and art have been widely published and exhibited. He graduated from the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Ma attended Yale University after receiving the American Institute of Architects Scholarship for Advanced Architecture Research in 2001 and holds a masters degree in Architecture from Yale. He has since taught architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Ma Yansong was awarded the 2006 Architecture League Young Architects Award. In 2008 he was selected as one of the twenty most influential Young Architects today by ICON magazine and Fast Company named him one of the ten most creative people in architecture in 2009. In 2010 he became the first architect from China to receive a RIBA fellowship.

“I work with emotion and with the context. When I design a building, I close my eyes and feel as if I saw a virtual world which lays half way between the city, the nature and the land. It goes from large scale to small scale. Many things travel in front of my eyes; I feel them and try to find the way to express my feelings. The language I use is the least important of it all. It does not matter whether they are straight lines, curves... I only intend for people to feel the same or to find something unexpected” says Ma Yansong. “MAD is an attitude, a posture towards architecture, towards society. Through our work we want people to be inspired by a place through local nature, time and space”, he states.

Photo © Daniel J.Allen

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MAD Office, Beijing, China. MAD is a Beijing-based architecture design office dedicated to creating innovative projects. The firm combines a sophisticated design philosophy with advanced technology in addressing and furthering issues in contemporary architecture and urbanity.

The firm has been the recipient of numerous awards including the 2006 Architectural League of New York's Young Architects Forum Award.

MAD's ongoing projects include the international competition-winning Absolute Tower in Toronto, Canada; The Tianjin Sinosteel International Plaza, a 320M tall tower in Tianjin, China; the Mongolian Museum in Inner Mongolia, China, and a private villa in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The firm has also won numerous international design competitions, including the 2006 Absolute Tower Competition in Toronto; the 2005 Solar Plaza Competition in Guangzhou, China, and the 2004 Shanghai National Software Outsourcing Base.

MAD's work has been published worldwide, and the office has also presented its designs in a series of exhibitions. In 2006, MAD was shown at the ‘MAD in China' exhibition in Venice during the Architecture Biennial, and the ‘MAD Under Construction' exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery in Beijing. In March of 2007, MAD will be shown at ‘MAD.exe' an exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ma Yansong, Yosuke Hayano and Qun Dand.

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Published on: February 6, 2023
Cite: "MAD Architects reveals winning design for the new terminal of Changchun Airport" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/mad-architects-reveals-winning-design-new-terminal-changchun-airport> ISSN 1139-6415
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