Mexico New International Airport

Mexico City’s New International Airport will revolutionize airport design and the experience of traveling. It creates an infrastructure that will last for the entire 21st century and become an icon for Mexico.

The new airport will be constructed in phases. Three runways will be built in the first phase, granting a capacity of up to 70 million passengers annually. The second phase will add three more runways, increasing the capacity to up to 120 million a year.

This “Airport of the Future” is designed with inspiration from the past. The shape, the symbolism, the sheer monumentality of the building are all drawn from Mexican art and architecture.

From the sky, the new airport appears as a luminous, X-shaped continuous structure. The roof of the terminal represents an eagle with its wings open ready to take flight. The terminal entrance will have a lush cacti garden with the access roads designed in the form of a snake. Rich and intense colors that represent the Mexican culture will be used for the functional components of the building facade.

Inside, travelers experience a vast, column-free space—uplifting and luminous. The central hall of the structure will be illuminated with bright colors that represent the Mesoamerican symbol of the sun. With a typical internal roof span of 9 mt it is nearly three times that of a conventional airport.

The lightweight glass and steel structure and soaring vaulted roof sit atop the largest base-isolation system of its kind that includes a “floating” platform, designed for Mexico City’s challenging soil conditions. Its unique prefabricated system can be constructed rapidly, without the need for scaffolding, ensuring that the new airport will be a showcase for Mexican innovation, built by Mexican contractors and engineers. This is an airport that ensures a sustainable future for all of Mexico. The design ensures few level changes, shorter walking distances, and easy navigation—avoiding the need for internal trains and underground tunnels for internal transport. The roof is made of lightweight glass and steel.