New Terminal Building, Billund Airport, Denmark

Billund Airport located in Jutland, is the second largest commercial airport in Denmark. The airport was established in 1964 in collaboration between a Danish toy manufacturer - and the county, town and parish councils. Steady growth in traffic from 50 000 passengers in 1965 to around 1.6 million in 1995 has been met by many extensions of the existing passenger and cargo facilities south of the single runway. In the mid-1990's the Management decided to establish a new passenger terminal north of the runway and in 1997 five teams of Danish and international architects and engineers were selected to submit their proposal for the new terminal, based on the Owner's detailed requirements. In the competition phase, a number of alterations to the Owner's tender programme were introduced in order to improve the logistics in the passenger handling and in the baggage handling. The design presented in this article met all the fundamental requirements of the Owner. The detail design phase started in January 1999, the construction on site started in October 1999 and the inauguration was in May 2002.