The newly opened airport in Western Sydney brought together creative input from some of the country’s boldest design studios, offering a striking way of looking at terminal design.

The recently completed Western Sydney International Airport stands as both the first major airport built in Australia in over 50 years and an expression of civic design that reshapes what travellers expect of airport terminals.

Initial design concepts by COX Architecture and Zaha Hadid Architects were later realised through final design and delivery led by Woods Bagot, resulting in a bold new vision that effortlessly radiates the natural beauty of the surrounding geography within the terminal’s airy interior. 

Large expanses of glass flood the terminal with warm natural light

Taking design cues from the huge horizons of the Cumberland Plain, the new airport, situated in Badgerys Creek, achieves a timeless traveller experience while remaining intuitive and easily navigable. 

A terminal to reflect an authentic Australian identity

COX principal and design lead David Holm and Zaha Hadid director and design lead Cristiano Ceccato began joint discussions as early as 2015, with initial design concepts following in 2018 to arrive at a shared idea of what represents Australia from an aesthetic standpoint. 

“A lot of the public projects that we both get involved in have very critical requirements for materials and finishes,” Holm says. “Given their nature of public use, things like railway stations and hospitals – and airports as well – they’re very, very high-demand. So they’re not assembling a delicate series of materials like you might find in someone’s bespoke house or a smaller facility.”

The need for durable, long-lasting materials to cope with the high density of passengers expected to pass through the space regularly directed Holm’s point of view to the surrounding bushland. 

He highlights the neutral shades of the airport’s flooring and its resemblance to a tapestry of threaded textures as an indication of this bushland setting. “Then you’ll see a series of layers of material such as the sandstone and timbers,” he says of the dynamic ceiling high above, “which are evocative of the broader Sydney regions. So it’s really down to a really small handful of materials and finishes that can be robust, but can also have that poetry and expression in place.”

Warm sand and terracotta hues bathe the interior in a gentle, welcoming shade

Holm identifies a unique element of the COX design philosophy, which keenly found its place in the airport. 

“It’s an approach we call designing with a sense of place,” he explains. “We always try and find what the essence of the place is, the physical place and the people; we try to understand that and deliver that in an abstract piece of architecture.” 

A gateway to Sydney

The diversity of Western Sydney and its surrounding multicultural influences were also significant factors, leading to an extended period of dialogue between Holm and Ceccato. 

Ceccato in particular was keen to highlight Western Sydney’s burgeoning status as the fastest-growing part of the city. The new airport needed to represent a gateway not only to Sydney but to the rest of the country.

Passageways direct travellers to the terminal along routes that are intuitive and easy to navigate

“We wanted to understand the place itself,” he says. “Understand its people, the geography, climate, light,” among a variety of other dynamic factors. 

The selection of materials and textures that drew Ceccato’s eye were those which seemed of a piece with the surrounding environment, while also evoking what Holm had identified as a stable sense of place. The question Ceccato sought to answer was how to identify and properly use a design aesthetic that would be fitting of the setting’s specific aura.

He was reminded by Holm, an Australian, of the distinct cultural and environmental polarities between central Sydney and the western expanses of the city. As Ceccato summarises the different areas, “It’s like two different colours”.

Another area in which Ceccato had to balance opposing shades was in the balance between everyday practicality and allowances for aesthetic flourish. 

“There are aspects of functionality,” he outlines, “things that are purely motion from A to B. You’ll see some of them are about human context and what you actually need, and others are purely in terms of creating a pleasant environment, something that facilitates the journey.” 

The dynamic waves of the high ceilings funnel light across the huge interior space of the main terminal

Ceccato draws continuous inspiration from a phrase commonly employed by Zaha Hadid herself, which he has written down in her genuine handwriting. 

“She used to say, there should be no end to experimentation. It is a beautiful phrase, and it’s a very open-ended phrase. In other words, it doesn’t mean you should just be trying your hardest to do something that’s particularly complex, or complicated, or difficult to achieve. It has to be about an experimental sense of testing yourself to find the right response to each architectural question you have.”

Redesigning the ‘black-and-white’ spaces of conventional airports

COX director Brooke Lloyd was in charge of the interior design elements of the project, marking the first time she had worked on an airport. Her approach was rooted in a desire to reshape how travellers view transit terminals, which Lloyd broadly considers “sort of neutral, black-and-white spaces”.

The solution was to generate a lively sense of anticipation, creating a welcoming space for passengers entering Sydney either from neighbouring states or far-flung corners of the globe. 

“We wanted that overwhelming sense of warmth and tactility,” Lloyd reflects of the initial design phase, “which drove us to use a lot of timber [and] a lot of warm terracotta tones that really engaged with the context of the place.”

Huge volumes of sunlight bathe the interior seating areas

The airport’s location, in close proximity to the Blue Mountains, further informed the aesthetic personality of the new terminal. While an open brief, the project outline emphasised a desire to properly represent the distinct regional contrasts of Western Sydney and the city’s central environs around the harbour. 

The open spaces of the city’s western expanses influenced the way light travelled through the interior of the airport, a difference in geography to which Lloyd was keenly responsive. 

“Part of the material strategy was creating a gradient in the floor,” she explains, “so it goes from light to dark. You really feel that sense of transition and that interplay between the light and the materiality.”

Experiential places, first and foremost

Woods Bagot CEO and project director for the design and delivery stage of the airport, Sarah Kay, recognised that while airports are principally functional transit ports, there are still opportunities for them to represent experiential spaces. 

The curved bank of outdoor public seating draws a pleasing contrast to the sharp lines of the terminal exterior

The key to a successful airport design is one that considers the customer experience as its leading point of focus, Kay says. 

“The aesthetic philosophy we employ focuses on intuitive human-centred design. Orientation and wayfinding become intuitive when passengers are guided to their destinations through carefully orchestrated light and strategic views, rather than relying solely on signage.”

To this end, Woods Bagot employed a palette of materials that facilitated easy orientation while also establishing a broadened sense of peace of mind. 

“The interiors are warm and inviting,” Kay elaborates, “framed by charcoal-coloured glass facades below generously wide roof eaves to shade the perimeter spaces around the terminal.”

The focus on customer experience also remained a priority for Neil Hill, Woods Bagot principal, regional transport lead and project design lead for the design and delivery stage of the airport.

Large expanses of outside space allow travellers to enter and exit the terminal without being restricted by narrow avenues

Considerations were made as to how certain materials and hues would read across the sizeable dimensions of the airport, as well as within what Hill identifies as the “more intimate transition spaces”, such as access to the airline lounges, through the bridges connecting the aircraft security and passport control spaces.

To this end, a curated selection of stone building materials incorporated large volumes of sandstone, employed for its warm, textured surfaces. However, the challenge lay in how this material depth would register with people transiting throughout the expansive arrivals and check-in spaces of the airport.

The solution came in the form of an inspired flourish of subtle architecture. “We introduced inset horizontal joints between the stone panels, to evoke strata we see in the escarpments,” Hill says.

Hill also employed a strategy he calls “consistent inconsistency”, namely the deliberate placement of individual stone panels that blend harmoniously throughout the terminal.

Surrounding fauna represents the massive span of Western Sydney bushland

“The stone panels were distributed to exemplify the unique pattern form, with each block akin to a family of unique characters,” he explains. “It’s a subtle way of representing the richness and diversity throughout Western Sydney communities.”

A vibrant, bold vision of what airport design can achieve – both today and over the next 50 years – the joint efforts of COX, Zaha Hadid Architects and Woods Bagot have delivered a transport hub at Western Sydney International Airport that is built to stand the test of time. 

Photography by Brett Boardman.

For more on airport architecture, see Melbourne Airport’s aviation-inspired Novotel hotel design here.