General Aviation Terminal at RDU International Airport

Planned as the focal point of a redeveloped general aviation complex at RDU International Airport, this 21,000 Sq. Ft. terminal is designed to support the growing needs of the general aviation community in the Raleigh-Durham region.  It features a café, pilot’s lounge, conference rooms, information and business service center, and an observation area that offers a place for all to visit and to experience the wonder of flight. 

The RDU General Aviation Terminal serves as a gateway to the region for general and corporate aviation.  The main entry hall is a two-story high space featuring a unique long-span truss supporting a foil-shaped roof, reflecting the imagery of aircraft design. The cantilever roof structure protects travelers from the elements while providing another visual reference to the building’s function as a center for aviation.

The program demanded two formal solutions, both a solid box and an opening, or gateway.  The building’s program required a solid box to contain the support spaces for general aviation.  The context required an opening, a gateway between adjacent aircraft hangars to allow passage from landside to airside.  In order to resolve these two issues, a programmatic box fills the entire 100’x140’ site and is pinched along its landside/airside axis.  This pinching, articulated as curtainwall on the landside, visually draws the visitor into the building. On the airside, the planes which define the pinching are mirrored to create a double height lobby, a rotated square volume which visually reaches out to the runway.  Through this formal manipulation and material expression, the resultant building is neither a pure box nor a pure opening.  The General Aviation Terminal was dedicated on December 17, 2003, to coincide with RDU’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight by the Wright Brothers.