Check out Beijing's new 'starfish' airport

Beijing's brand new £50 billion 'starfish' airport is set to open, just five years after construction began.  Its opening coincides with the upcoming 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.



Designed by the late architect Zaha Hadid, Daxing Airport will become the largest single-building airport in the world. Its unique design means it has five connecting concourses along with four runways, potentially increasing to eight in the future. The airport is said to hold around 72 million travellers each year.



The associate director of the Zaha Hadid Architects London Cristiano Ceccato said "It's shaped like a hand, meaning that you have a palm, and you have radiant fingers, and that means all the processing happens in the palm and then the distance to the aircraft in the fingers is actually not very long.

"So it's a very human, very walkable terminal. Even though it is very large, it is something that still remains very accessible to the individual person, and also, very pleasant to traverse."



Criticisms of the airport have been made, with questions raised over its necessity; the city already has a major airport, Beijing Capital, which hosts around 100 million travellers each year. However, it's believed the new airport will relieve a lot of traffic congestion around the city and prove its worth as a vital addition to Beijing.

With China set to become the number one tourist destination in the world in the coming decade, it is important that measures are in place to accommodate the huge numbers of people arriving in the country. 

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