Grimshaw to oversee Heathrow expansion
Greenpeace calls third runway scheme ‘the greatest climate change project on the planet’
Grimshaw is set to masterplan one of the most controversial projects in the country, the £13 billion expansion of Heathrow Airport including a third runway.
The practice, which prides itself on its green credentials including designing the Eden Project and being a founder member of the UK Green Building Council, beat firms including YRM, HOK and RMJM in a competition launched by BAA in the summer.
The Runway 3 project, which also includes a sixth terminal, has become a lightning rod for protest by the green movement, and architects thought to be involved are increasingly becoming the target of climate-change activists.
Last week, members of the Plane Stupid campaign group hijacked BD’s Architect of the Year Awards, handing a spoof award to Pascall & Watson, the firm it believed was in line for the job.
Grimshaw and BAA declined to comment on the winner of the masterplanning scheme, but losing bidders were recently told by Runway 3 programme leader Ian Guy that the firm had scooped the job following a standstill period.
Greenpeace spokesman Ben Stewart said: “Companies that work on these projects deserve to have the spotlight thrown on them. The third runway is one of the greatest climate change projects on the planet — it is iconic.
“Any company that is contributing to the efforts to build it will undoubtedly be the target of a peaceful campaign.”
But John Alker, a spokesman for the UK Green Building Council, defended Grimshaw, pointing out that air travel was responsible for less carbon emissions than buildings.
“I know this is a hugely controversial project,” he said, “but flying is a relatively small part of the problem.”
Runway 3 has the backing of the Labour government, but has effectively been put on hold until after the general election because of Conservative Party opposition.
A source close to the job revealed that BAA had overseen a lightning quick masterplanning competition.
“This has been very, very quick by BAA standards,” the source said. “I think they wanted to get up a head of steam before the election and any possible axing.”
Grimshaw is currently remodelling the existing Terminal 1 building at Heathrow and has a long track record of airport work including schemes at Stansted, Gatwick and Manchester.
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Readers' comments (7)
anon | 13 November 2009 9:52 am
It would be better to expand and improve links to stanstead or Gatwick. Heathrow is already a big maze. However ruling out flying is a naive opinion of protestors. Proposing and campaigning for solutions would be much more useful occupation.
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Robert Shaw | 13 November 2009 11:17 am
Our West London local paper recently reported that BAA had decided not to submit a planning application for Heathrow expansion before the next general election (though do people actually trust what the papers report). Like it or not, it appears that the Labour supporters of runway 3 may not be in government after that election - for many years - and the Tories are opposed to it; so what is in it for Grimshaws?
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Seymour Alexander | 13 November 2009 11:57 am
Yes, why worry, its only our kids and grand kids that will suffer; the only important thing is bottom line today!
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g-j | 13 November 2009 5:24 pm
How very unimaginative of the BAA. Rogers got a terminal (a good one granted), Foster got a terminal and now it's Grimshaws turn. Why don't the BAA look to younger designers who could bring new attitudes and talents to a contentious scheme like the expansion of Heathrow. There are some truly great terminals going up in the Middle East and India. At Heathrow we get the sub-archigram 'high tech' of a bunch of old men who were educated in the 60s. Received solutions, not an attempt to look at aviation solutions in the 21st century. I predict banality.
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An inconvenient truth | 14 November 2009 10:22 am
It is an inconvenient truth that cars and power stations contribute more than 60% to global warming. Flying contributes about 3% from what I have read, (even if I am 100% wrong it isnt that significant). There seems to be a great degree of hypocrisy and convenient ignorance here. Most of us fly, we are an Island so to get to most places we need to fly. Shipping contributes twice as much carbon as flying. Hot air ballons? So there is no alternative to long haul and most short haul flying in this country. High speed train lines will take decades to build and will have a very high environmental cost and perhaps prompt our protesting friends to create Train Stupid? Any excuse for a good stunt! Airports and flying are a reality and to deny their existence is ridiculous. Incidentally I would like to know how many flights those architects cheering the other night had been on in the last year. I bet they had the carbon footprint of mammoth (adding in the self righteous hot air of course). I think Heathrow is a horribly antiquated warren and needs to be made to work better. It always seems to me to be poorly laid out when I have endlessly taxi-ed around it. Add this to the old building stock and the crappy roads the carbond they produce probably contributes more to global warming that a large proportion of the flights from the airport. Isn't this a good thing to try and make it work better? Something will happen there even if they don't add a runway, so the protestors are urinating in the wind. As for Grimshaw it is a big presumption (and journalistically convenient) that they have rejected their green ethos. Maybe they haven't, do we actually know what they are doing, what is their remit? I would rather have them guiding this than most other architects. It sounds like a brave decision to me.
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Jeremy Lingard | 20 November 2009 11:13 am
Expansion of Heathrow does not only concern carbon emissions, although that is very important. There is no possible ethical justification for additional expansion at Heathrow which is embedded in an urban area and already blights the lives of tens of thousands of people with noise and kerosene dumping. It must not be made worse. The correct approach to dealing with expansion of London's air travel capacity is to expand the out of town airports - Stanstead, Gatwick, or of course a new uninhabited site, and provide it with efficient access infrastructure. Grimshaws - just say no.
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Dave Hampton | 25 November 2009 7:37 pm
At the level of the individual, especially for the readership of BD, flying is by far the biggest chunk of our eco footprint. (Every 3 to 4 hours in the air adds a ton of CO2equivalent.) If a CEO, or a leading architect, or a citizen wants to lead by example, (and most do), the only sane thing to do is to quit flying, or at least reduce air travel dramatically. (I don't fly.) And people with reputations to worry about WILL want to be seen to lead by example, so people will soon turn away from frequent flying, and UK will be left with expensive unused white elephant runways built by the greedy for the corrupt at a time when we all knew in our hearts we should be building renewable energy capacity not runways. Personally, I would judge Grimshaw's leadership or lack of it by looking at the carbon footprints of their senior management team. Not by the projects they happen to win. And, less significantly, I also think Grimshaw will regret working on this one, in as little as 5 years time, as they find bright young architects, who would have joined them, walk on by.
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