BAA eyes more consultancies for Heathrow East terminal

BAA is seeking design consultancies to work on Heathrow East, the facility that will eventually replace Terminal 2. T2 will be demolished in spring 2008 to make way for the new £1.5bn terminal.

The project is being co-ordinated by BAA’s small in-house design team of about six people, led by director of design David Bartlett.

Besides drafting in architect Foster & Partners to design the terminal, BAA plans to use a core roster of consultancies currently engaged on Terminal 5 to work on Heathrow East. T5’s principal product consultant Priestman Goode will oversee design of the customer-facing elements of the interior. Speirs and Major will design the lighting at Heathrow East, as it did at T5. Other design groups will be appointed on an ad hoc basis, between now and the end of the year.

‘We have the main team of design groups on board, and they are already delivering scheme designs, but it is still early days for the Heathrow East project. We have not yet got into passenger-level details,’ says Bartlett. ‘As and when we need smaller consultants, we will be appointing them, from now until the end of the year.’

The new terminal will replace the oldest sections of Heathrow airport, including T2 and the office development Queens Building, which dates back to 1955 and Heathrow’s previous life as London Airport. Demolition of the buildings will begin in April, once T2’s resident airline British Airways has moved to its new home in T5.

Heathrow East is scheduled to open in 2012, in time for the London Olympics. It constitutes the second stage of BAA’s programme of renovation for the airport, Transforming Heathrow. This includes the construction of T5 and the revamping of Terminal 3, which is due for completion at the end of the year.

Although Heathrow East will not have a greater capacity than T2, remaining fixed at 30m passengers a year, BAA hopes that the facility will ‘match the main T5 building in terms of scale and ambiance, and equal or surpass it in terms of form and function.’



BAA: the next decade
The group plans to invest about £9.5bn in renovations and expansions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted:
Gatwick: £850m to increase the north terminal’s capacity, and revamp retail at the south terminal
Stansted: £2.5bn to expand the terminal by 6000m2
Heathrow: £6.2bn for the refurbishment of all its terminals, plus construction of T5 and Heathrow East



Transforming heathrow
• 27 March 2007 – Heathrow Terminal 5 opens

• April 2008 – demolition of Terminal 2 begins

• 2012 – T2 replacement facility Heathrow East opens • There are also plans to refurbish the Terminal 3 access zone to achieve a more spacious environment for passengers and airlines