Abu Dhabi International Airport, UAE

With a key position in the global race for fast-expanding luxury air travel and transfer points, the new Midfield Terminal Complex will process over 50 million travelers each year to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding Middle East capital. On plan, the X-shape provides the greatest programmatic efficiencies enabling the terminal to extend to 49 gatehouses, accommodating 59 aircrafts at any one time. Internally, huge spaces lay under long span leaning arches, visually separated from the roof to enhance the lightweight feel. The central terminal space hosting the Departure Hall, with a height of 50-meter and 700,000 m2 of internal space, can easily fit 21 football fields. The acoustic design focused on the assessment of the room acoustics of the various spaces within the airport, to achieve the suitable level of reverberation time and speech intelligibility for public and emergency announcements, through a peer review of the PAVA system designed by others. The acoustic design focused on the assessment of the room acoustics of the various spaces within the airport, to achieve the suitable level of reverberation time and speech intelligibility for public and emergency announcements, through a peer review of the PAVA system designed by others. This has been done through acoustic modelling of the spaces to predict the reverberation time used for the PAVA system review. In addition, support during the construction has been provided to answer to RFIs and design changes related to the entire acoustic design, including the envelope and internal sound insulation, room acoustics, building services noise control and the PAVA system.