Shenzhen’s Energy Saving Super Airport
Shenzhen is located across the river from Hong Kong. The city was mainland China’s first economically free zone in what turned out to be a successful experiment.
They are now building a new terminal at the Bao’an International Airport. The terminal will have a double skin canopy that will let patterned natural light into the space, thus reducing energy consumption. The inner skin of the roof will be made of a fine net that will allows diffused sunlight to come in creating a pleasant indoor atmosphere.
The pictures of what this airport will look like are stunning, to say the least. See the gallery after the break.
What I want to know is, what precautions has the Shenzhen airport taken to withstand any/all of the many typhoons that unleash their fury on the city. My wife lived in Shenzhen for some 10 years and she tells me stories of when the rain is so hard and the puddles so deep, she took her swimming fins with her when she went to work some mornings. Or, was it her row boats oars?
Seriously. I wonder how this double skin (Goretex?) airport will do against serious inclement weather. Does anybody know?
Check out the pictures gallery:
Yes I am sure that they are spending millions of dollars in developing this state of the art airport, yet they are going to overlook harsh weather conditions. They are probably safe to assume that they will never get any bad weather, amirite?
At one time, Denver Colorado USA had a plan for a runway that was sloped such that the planes would land and run uphill, and would run down hill to take off. This was on a Popular Science (or was that Pop. Mechanics?) cover over 30 years ago. Would that not also save energy, by using gravity to assist the plane in taking off?