Disposable Terminal Design

An airport terminal design 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. There are even other reasons that determine the end of service for an airport terminal: the obsolescence of most of its parts; the technological solutions and systems achieving the end of service cycle. At this point it is necessary to establish the terminal location with respect its entire life cycle. Then it will be considered among available alternatives: the necessity of renewal and/or expansion or replacement of the terminal facility. Given the short service cycle, the airport terminal design is an evolutive design process that should pursue both the economic and environmental sustainability. So, the qualitative judgment of the architectural solutions, the evaluation of the levels of service and the assessment of the initial investment are not enough. Indeed the whole life of the terminal must be considered, since the life-cycle is well-defined. So it is necessary to understand which solution is the most fitting, among the expansion and substitution ones, stressing the economic and environmental sustainability. Both these aspects are relevant, considering the short service cycle of the terminal. Life Cycle Costing methodology can help, as a tool for the project design management. This kind of evaluation can be integrated to a qualitative analysis (of the proposed architectural solutions) and to a quantitative assessment (of the levels of service granted). This family of tools, properly customized, can address the best choice in the terminal design, and it can be used at the final design stage. Desk research is necessary, in order to examine in depth the Italian and European positions on the adoption of a life-cycle approach in public procurements (ISO 15686-5:2008 is about application of Life Cycle Costing on buildings and their parts). It is necessary to understand the current tools and methodologies adopted in design management by the airport design teams. LCC should be investigated to achieve better planning of economic sustainability trends in airport projects. The inventory of the missing data could be solved by developing average values, collecting European data. Once the tool has been tuned, it should be applied to a proper field experimentation.