Chek Lap Kok.

This airport, now under construction off one of Hong Kong's outlying islands, has much in common with Piano's Kansai and with Foster's much smaller Stansted in that it provides both a sense of place and clear directionality.

Like Kansai (AR November 1994), Hong Kong's new airport at Chek Lap Kok is being built on an artificial island in the sea - and for the same reasons: the local topography is mountainous, and the only natural flat areas of land are needed for development. The first phase, to be completed by 1997 when Hong Kong is handed back to the Chinese, will cater for 37 million passengers a year, and the full development, scheduled for 2040, will be capable of handling 87 million. The terminal will then be the size of JFK and Heathrow put together.

The parti of the huge building is essentially simple. Land transport connections are on the east side of the terminal, with road-borne traffic arriving at topmost level, and cars and buses departing from runway level. Passengers moving in both directions traverse a grand top-lit volume which cuts through the whole section (like the canyon at Kansai, but more generous in width). Rapid transport rail lines connecting to Hong Kong Island and Kowloon set down and collect people within this space.

Arriving passengers use sloping bridges to cross the void from the sheltered road set-down area and from the rapid transport platform to reach the check-in area. From here, they proceed through security control to reach the long concourse that stretches west across the man-made island. In the end, this will be a Y-shaped affair with 50 gates; there will be 39 in the first phase. Passengers from the departure lounges in the concourse go down to the planes along the sloping ramps of the air bridges.

In reverse, passengers find the air-bridge ramps moved to slope down to the arrivals floor of the concourse, from the end of which they descend to the baggage hall, then down again to the base of the great gulch at road level, or across the void by bridge to reach the platform for rapid transport to Hong Kong. Underground shuttle trains run the length of the concourse.

The structure is a prefabricated steel frame on a 33 m square grid. Roofs are lightweight steel trussed vaults with continuous central lanterns to bring daylight to the middle of the plan. The vaults curve longitudinally to emphasise the axis of passenger flow.

So for all its great size, the complex should be clear and easy to use. And to build - there are now less than 1000 days until Hong Kong is handed back. The airport and its associated infrastructure projects make up a remarkable swan-song by the colonial administration.