BAA announces roster of architectural groups

Airports operator BAA has completed a roster of seven project architect firms and is now in the final stages of selecting interior and retail design consultancies to work with them.

The architecture groups are: Geoffrey Reid Associates; GMW Partnership; Hellmouth, Obata & Kassabaum; Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates; Pascall & Watson; Percy Thomas Partnership and Richard Rogers Partnership. They were chosen from a shortlist of 16, itself compiled from an initial 300 firms.

The selected firms will work on the “standardisation programme” for BAA’s 21st Century Airports improvement scheme.

BAA group design director Raymond Turner says of the standardisation programme: “We want architects and designers to solve problems which we haven’t solved before, like creating a sense of calm in a busy environment”, rather than designing another check-in desk.

“Our selection criteria sought excellence in two key areas, design skills, of course, but also the ability to efficiently manage the design process,” he adds.

BAA’s long-awaited rosters for interior and retail designers will be finalised “extremely soon”, Turner says.