Life cycle approach and airport terminal design

The construction industry has the most consistent economic investments and the most determinant environmental impacts. In Europe the 50% of the produced energy is absorbed by the construction industry, the 50% of the non-renewable source of energy are intended for it, the 50% of the waste originate from it1. In this category, the infrastructure sector is a very interesting case. Focusing on the airport infrastructure, it is characterized by clear lifecycle and subsequent service lifes. Since the airport is a complex built set, made of subsistems such as the airside, the landside and the terminal, it impacts in a number of ways the economic and environmental systems. There are many reasons that determine this plain rhythm in lifecycle of an airport infrastructure and of its subsystems. Focusing on the an airport terminal subset, it must face a continuous growth in passengers. When an airport doesn’t provide a good planning and programming of the infrastructure, the flow of passengers that the terminal must process reaches the system break-down. This determines the end of service of that specific terminal layout, beside other causes such as obsolescence of its technological solutions. The consequence of these cyclical events is a renewal and/or expansion or replacement of the airport terminal facility. Both these solutions have a significant economic impact for the airport owner and an environmental one for the site. The airport terminal design process shows its evolutionary nature, that should pursue both the economic and environmental sustainability. The whole life of the terminal must be considered, since the operations of renewal or decommissioning and construction are recursive. Life Cycle Management allows optimization of costs and of environmental efforts during the lifecycle of the built subsets. Then it is necessary to provide a view of the airport terminal’s lifecycle perspective, in order to allow a proper management of the project based on information supported decision making, both during the terminal’s lifespan and in the design and planning stage as well. A life cycle approach should be undertaken by the airport owners and their offices and it should be accompanied by a panel of tools and methodologies.