Salerno, Italy
Designed by Atelier(s) Alfonso Femia, Deerns Italia, Deerns Nederland, and Michelangelo Pugliese, the New “Salerno-Costa d’Amalfi” Airport is an ambitious project located just south of Naples that includes a terminal for commercial aviation, the necessary infrastructure for the organization of flights, a fuel depot, a multipurpose building for main office use, the harmonization of flight runways and outdoor spaces linking all new infrastructures.
The new terminal is conceived as an overall intervention, synergistic with the landscape and the surrounding context.
Originally a military airfield in the 1920s, the airport closed in 2016.
This is a unique opportunity for a territory so fragile and battered by the massive presence of the high-intensity agriculture production industry but also a territory with great potential for its positional value in the middle of the Mediterranean.
It is therefore essential to design a modern and functional infrastructure, perfectly consistent with the landscape, identity, environment, and experience of the territory.
The project has been awarded a 2024 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The methodological proposal is articulated around a strong identity of the terminal but also responds to the objectives of the client in terms of modularity, expandability, and energy performance (sustainability), the three fundamental design pillars.
Their project was born from the study of the different scenarios offered by the surrounding contemporary territory, the only way to recognize the forms of a wide, widespread, and heterogeneous territory, made of natural and anthropic elements, looking towards the built and natural horizon that extends from the Naples metropolitan area to the border of the Campania region with the Basilicata region.
A territory, therefore, very rich and everything but boring.
Physical reality offers the starting points for glimpsing the forms of future developments.
Based on these reflections, with the objectives of flexibility, cost efficiency, quality, enhancement of experience, and sustainability, the new terminal is designed as an aggregation of highly efficient and interconnected modular functional spaces.
A modular structure is at the base of the entire project, which from a compact three-dimensional grid extends and merges with the surrounding territory, through clusters that extend to the inside of the parking lot.
The expansion of the terminal is guaranteed by the expandability of the volumes in different directions, excluding the area near the airport runways, within the modular structure.
The coverage grows together with the terminal, defining an evolving landscape. It is planned to expand the baggage claim area, bag drop off, lounge area, and security.
Project: New “Salerno-Costa d’Amalfi” Airport
Architects: Atelier(s) Alfonso Femia srl./ AF517
Associate Architects: Deerns Italia SpA and Deerns Nederland B.V.
Landscape Architects: Michelangelo Pugliese
Client: GE.S.A.C. SpA—Gestione Servizi Aeroporti Campani
Photographers: Stefano Anzinib