Creating Heathrow's new eye in the sky Available to Purchase

The air-traffic control tower at Heathrow, London is responsible for the safe and efficient operation of the busiest two-runway airport in the world. The building of Terminal 5, which opened in March 2008, brought with it the need for an enlarged control tower built at a new location at the airfield centre. This paper describes the unique engineering issues faced by the project team in developing a design and construction method that satisfied both the strict functional requirements of an efficient air-traffic control tower while addressing the challenges of building an 87 m structure in the midst of live aircraft stands and taxiways.