The terminal at London Stansted Airport was designed by Foster Associates, founded by Norman Foster, with Peter Rice of Ove Arup & Partners as structural engineer. John Laing built it from 1988 to 1991 at a cost of 100 million pounds, and it opened in 1991. The article calls it a landmark work of high-tech architecture.
It has a floating roof on a space frame of inverted-pyramid trusses, resembling a swan in flight. The plan is a square, 11 bays by 11, and the length is 162 meters (531 feet). Utility pillars at the truss bases supply uplighting, air conditioning, water, telecoms and power. Services moved underground, and check-in, security and gates share one level.
It won the Mies van der Rohe Award in 1990, and two bays were added in 2007 to 2009.
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