Ellan Suder LookingOutwards-03

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The Shenzen Bao’an International Airport, designed by Massimiliano Fuksas and Knippers Helbig (2013), is a large scale building designed with parametric fabrication.

I was actually in this airport before, but I didn’t know how it was designed until I looked up parametric design. According to this article, the building is meant to evoke the image of a manta ray, “a fish that breathes and changes its own shape, undergoes variations, turns into a bird to celebrate the emotion and fantasy of a flight.” It’s really incredible in person — the honeycomb-like windows and smooth silver curves look organic and futuristic. The sheer number of windows is lovely to look at.

I couldn’t find more information about the exact algorithms used to design the space, but the purpose of Helbig’s algorithm was to place the 60,000 panels onto a free form design. “Due to the free form design and varying dimensions of the façade panels a parametric development of the geometry was necessary.”