Cruciform Kurokawa.

Regional hubs of air travel are becoming more and more important in the global net. But they need to be rooted in the cultures and climates of their locations if the world is not to become totally sanitised and uniform.

There is a good deal of competition among the cities of South-East Asia to form regional airports, ones that will act as hubs for international travel from which more local connections will distribute passengers round the area. Kuala Lumpur's bid is masterminded by Kisho Kurokawa and is intended to be ready next year.

The parti of the main terminal is conventional, with road access at the arrivals level, which is lofted above ground, and a mezzanine station for connection to the city through the planned eco-media intelligent city, an extension of the Malaysian capital which will be cabled up and devoted to the new electronic technologies (another device in the city's strategy to become dominant in the area). On top of the building is the departures level, under an elaborate roof of connected hyperbolic paraboloids which, even in the rather arid interior perspectives [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED], promise a sensation of aerial travel.

In front of the terminal is the contact pier, where the more privileged planes will discharge or draw their passengers from the terminal itself. But this offers no more than 10 stands for large aeroplanes, and clearly, if the airport is to act as a regional terminal, it must cater for many more. Hence the cruciform satellites which are connected to the terminal by shuttle rail links. The satellites are perhaps the most interesting parts of the complex, each on three levels (arrivals, departures and services), and arranged so that the four arms spin out from a hollow hub, a glazed inverted cone in the middle of which is to be a luxuriant tropical garden. The design of satellites has been largely a secondary affair in the new wave of airports: Stansted for instance is always talked about in terms of its terminal, rather than the rather dreary and utilitarian satellite, in which if you are unlucky, you may have to wait for quite long periods. At Kuala Lumpur, the satellites should be pleasant and diverting places to wait in, with their huge glass walls looking out over great tropical forest trees - the landscape designers have a major responsibility here, which it is to be hoped will be fulfilled with more flair than the work at Jakarta airport (AR November 1995). which in some ways tries to do the same sorts of things.

The possibility of growth was a major component of the brief. The plan is designed to be handed (ie created in a mirror image about the access of the rail link to the city and the roads). One or two, or even half satellites can be added as necessary. It should be flexible, and while perhaps not being one of the most exciting airports in the world, it will be easy to read and move through, with unexpected moments of delight.