Pascall+Watson were approached to compete for the new Al Wajh International Airport masterplan and terminal design subsequent to our highly successful redesign and delivery of the new Red Sea Airport.

The Al Wajh Airport brief is to design an airport unlike any other in the world, being fully functional as an airport, but born from an entirely different conception of the “airport experience”. This is to be a place where passengers all become “guests” and the airport becomes an extension of the resort – both in terms of level of service and ambience.

To achieve these ends, P+W have radically overhauled conventional ideas for both the arrivals and departures processes. This is achieved by reorganising, and thereby backgrounding, facilities that are typically associated with the air travel and instead foregrounding the more sensual experiences of local landscape, climate, and urban heritage. The terminal offers a journey without queues, without shops, and without the gaudy expressions of conventional airport media advertising and wayfinding.

A key part of the proposal is the achievement of LEED Platinum status through the use of low-energy “lean” measures that take advantage of passive conditioning in a temperate climate, and transform previously internalised spaces into unconditioned areas that are more closely aligned with a resort experience than a typical commercial building.