ADP Ingenierie and Zaha Hadid Architects have completed the concept design for the world's largest airport passenger terminal, the Beijing New Airport Terminal Building in Daxing.

But respite is on the horizon in the shape of a new airport for the capital, construction of which began in late December, and which is due to open in 2019. The projected cost is 80 billion yuan ($12.8 billion; 11.3 billion euros).

Located in Daxing District, south downtown of Beijing, the new airport will initially be able to handle 45 million passengers a year and will join its older sibling in the record books, being the world's largest passenger airport.

Designers of the airport, sketches of which were unveiled recently, say it will reflect China's rich cultural heritage and the country's prominent place in the world now and in the future.

The design is a collaboration between ADP Ingenierie of France and Zaha Hadid Architects of Britain.

"The design is modern as well as respectful of China's cultural environment, taking its inspiration from Chinese traditions and symbols and recasting them in a contemporary light," ADPI says.

A spokesman for Zaha Hadid Architects says: "The overall symmetry of the project and the flowing, curving forms integrate the design into a harmonious composition which evokes Chinese culture. Its colors and materials are also emblematic of Chinese traditional visual language."

The star-shaped terminal will include "an integrated multi-modal transport center featuring direct links to local and national rail services including the high speed rail", Zaha Hadid Architects says.

It is also planned to be "a key transport hub within Beijing's growing infrastructure development and a catalyst for the region's economic development, including the city of Tianjin and Hebei province".

In 2011 ADPI was declared winner of the international competition organized by Capital Airports Holding and Beijing Capital International Airport to design the airport terminal.

ADPI's rivals included some of the most prestigious international architecture and engineering firms.

Last October the Beijing New Airport Headquarters created a joint design team bringing together ADPI and Zaha Hadid Architects to develop the design together.

Zaha Hadid Architects, led by the Pritzker Prize-winning British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, has worked in China for several decades, with a wide variety of projects such as Galaxy Soho in central Beijing and Guangzhou Opera House.

The design of the new Beijing airport "celebrates the excitement of air travel expressed as a sequence of dynamic and fluid forms", Zaha Hadid Architects says. "We have developed broad, flowing rooflines over large, column-free spaces to provide a sense of scale and grandeur to Beijing's new gateway."

The airport will have four runways, 150 parking aprons for passenger jets, 24 parking aprons for cargo aircraft and 14 maintenance areas.

It is expected to boast 82 independent gate positions covering 700,000 square meters.

All of the pathways through the terminal will converge within a flowing central space, creating a multilayered "urban space" within the terminal, providing an exciting place of convergence for travelers as well as reducing transfer distances between departure gates, Zaha Hadid Architects says.

It will also minimize passenger transfer distances between ground transport and aircraft.

ADPI says the airport "provides a unique opportunity to embed sustainability at the heart of the design philosophy. It will aspire to be Asia's leading green hub of choice."

The aim is to minimize "dependence on natural resources, and for the airport to tread lightly on the Earth", ADPI says.

The airport is designed to handle 72 million passengers, 2 million tons of cargo and mail, and 620,000 flights annually by 2025, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, which approved the plan a mere 11 days before construction began.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China will provide 18 billion yuan from its civil aviation development fund for the project, and Capital Airports Holding Co will invest 6 billion yuan. The rest of the investment will rely on bank loans and private capital, the National Development and Reform Commission says.

Zaha Hadid Architects says that apart from the airport, "there are exciting opportunities for residential, institutional, cultural and transport projects we look forward to developing in China in the future".

Its current projects elsewhere include the Sleuk Rith Institute in Cambodia and the New National Stadium for the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020.

Like Zaha Hadid Architects, ADPI has experience in China. It is now working on the competition for a new airport in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and will continue to collaborate with airport authorities and local design institutes all over China, the company says.

ADPI, whose headquarters are in Paris, has a series of landmark projects including Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport, the final assembly line factory complexes for the Airbus A380 in Toulouse and the French Embassy in Tokyo.

Carlotta Clivio contributed to this story.

zhangchunyan@chinadaily.com.cn