World's largest airport opens with a little hi-tech help

The world's largest airport was officially opened in Hong Kong today, an airport the architect, Sir Norman Foster, would never have been able to design it without computer simulation.

Ian Godwin, IT director at Foster & Partners, said that the roof of Hong Kong's $20bn International Airport was too complex to visualise in 2D media. "We would never have dared do it if we hadn't been able to walk right around that model," he told an international teleconference. "And 3D modelling enabled us to complete the entire design in just 21 months."

The roof, which is the largest in the world, is an undulating steel and glass structure that covers 45 acres.

Foster relied on Bentley Systems' Microstation software to visualise the design and geometry of the building. The enterprise software enables multiple files to be used simultaneously by different users. It displays changes in real-time but protects architectural data from being touched by engineers.

Volker Thein, Bentley's European building industry director, said: "The software is fast enough for users to experiment with. It is ideal for collaborative work, such as the Hong Kong project where we had contractors from all over the world."