OBN: New Air Terminal Building at Oban Airport, Connel, Scotland

Project Text

«It is virtually impossible to look at the workings of the sky without somehow being moved by it. There is no greater teacher of time and space than the sky, no greater courier to the sense of majesty, no greater dwarfer of one's own significance, and no greater prompter to the question 'why'. To watch and interpret the skies has always been one of man's most basic instincts, providing a way of placing oneself in the context of the universe. From the moments when connections were made between the alternation of day and night and the motions of the heavens, there has been a fascination with astronomy, and a need to understand the unchanging regularities of the cosmos. Ancient civilisations built up a knowledge of the skies that was in many ways more precise than their knowledge of the world in which they lived. The regularity of the motions of celestial objects enabled them to gain a profound sense of cyclic time and of the predictability of nature.»
James Turrell. Eclipse. 1999.

Stepping onto the runway at Oban Airport is to be exposed to the dramatic and dynamic landscape of Ardmucknish Bay. Ozone on the nose, light dancing across the tarmac amongst the puddles from a recent shower. Skye is to the west, offering a rain- shadow to the area and allowing the airport to function when other west-coast and Highland sites are fog bound. The sky is massive and changing constantly, the wind constant and loud. The sea reflects all this, changing from silver to black in a second, but always moving, always textured. The only tidal rapids in Britain are located at the southern end of the runway, racing as the tide turns to produce white waters below the road bridge.

«Highlands and Islands Airport Limited (HIAL), operates an efficient and safe infrastructure of ten airports in the Highlands and Islands. These airports offer vital social, business and welfare links to otherwise remote communities. With the prospect of oil from the Minch, oil traffic, increasing freight and tourism, daily school runs, search and rescue, police, air ambulance, ferry flights, RAF training, gliding, refuelling and the further development of aviation support provision, there has been a revival of local political interest in the expansion of Oban Airport at Connel Airstrip. This project assumes the viability of the foundation for a business case and the projection of the airstrip into HIAL's eleventh and fully licensed airport with facilities for passengers, freight and aircraft movements similar to that of Sumburgh in the Shetland Islands.The programme with focus on the design of a new terminal building for up to 150,000 passengers each year and eleven thousand fixed wing, rotary, training, test and over-flight aircraft movements.»
Extract from project brief - New Air Terminal Building at Oban Airport

This is a site where the connections between landscape, sky and water are effortless. This is truly a special place to be flung from the ground into the air, to experience the change in pressure as you climb skyward, the change in colour of the sky and and feel cooling of the air beyond the small windows. What if a new airport were to expose you to such elemental changes on the ground? A new airport in such a atmospheric site should prepare you for your journey or alternatively allow arriving passengers a transition between air and ground. What if this airport were to celebrate air: air in movement as wind, air as the medium through which sunlight travels and air as an aura, an atmosphere with an intangible quality? A tilted green roof of wind-pruned shrubs and sea grasses greets the airport visitor. Prised from the earth, the massive roof is pierced by a simple glass box and a series of rusted steel 'stacks' which tumble down the green incline. Positioned above outdoor spaces at the heart of the building, these apertures draw air, light, rain and ozone into and through the building. Such elemental experiences on the ground prepare the visitor for the air, forging connections between ground and sky, a celebration of the unique qualities of the site as a gateway to the air.