The design
The Hong Kong international airport is the man made island having the largest passenger terminal in the world, The terminal design was easy and simple with ability to resist typhoon and water tides. It consisted of repeating lattice of steel trusses. 136 such lattices were produced each of 140 tons. Heavy jets can be parked, there are 22 miles of super highways and tunnels built to connect the airport with main city and the longest double Decker suspended bridges with speedy railways were built.
Challenges and solutions
The selected site was mountainous islands, the mountains had to be removed resulting in 200 million tons of rocks removal by giant earth movers. The excavated rubble was suggested to be used to fill the sea to join the small islands into one big island.1 mile long tunnel had to be built through the sea, having six lanes to connect the airport with the main city.
In some area, sea tunnel was not feasible, so bridges were proposed to be long enough to span the islands and high enough to allow most gigantic ships to pass below it. The building site was levelled and bridge construction started. When the tunnel and bridges were completed, were connected together 2 super highways .The coastline was extended more than a half mile into the sea. Terminal plans are having large enclosed space, more than a mile long covering an area of 6 million sq. ft. on land.
Since the airport is the manmade island, the foundation of the airport terminal was designed to resist water tides. The foundation type proposed was piers/piles concrete. Each pile weighed 25 tons.
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