Pyramids to reduce noise Schiphol Airport

Schiphol Airport (click-2-enlarge)

This month plans have been unveiled for the building of about 150 pyramids along the latest runway of Schiphol Airport, the so-called ‘Polderbaan’, in the vicinity of Amsterdam. The first phase of the construction should be finished as early as the 9th of September 2009.

The planned pyramids are one of the more concrete plans of the released ‘Air Traffic Agenda’, and made the front pages of the national newspapers. A consortium of pretty much all companies and institutions in the Netherlands with knowledge of air traffic technology participated in the research that led to this report. The ambitious goal is to reduce the noise of the airport by 20 percent, to reduce the CO2 emission likewise, while sustaining a growth of air travel by 10 percent. Economic growth while reducing noise and CO2; plus, plus, plus.

The plans have a speculative aspect as no timetable is mentioned with the figures. And while the plan for the pyramids is very concrete, the other plans are not. To reduce the noise for inhabitants living nearby there is a plan to use anti-sound in the bedrooms of each house. Not kidding, this is real. The main flaw of such a system: you have the speaker to your cushion, and… two meters further the noise of the airport could well be doubled.

Another ingenious idea is to create Airport Terminals at railway stations as far as in Belgium. You could check-in at the station and then take the train to the airport. Because the train is more efficient in emissions than a car, this could enhance the air-quality of the area around the airport slightly. Speaking for myself: I always take the train to the airport, as it stops underneath it. But quite often the question is: How much time is the train delayed? That is additional stress.

More speculative and long-term is the hope for more silent and fuel-efficient aircrafts. The Boeing Dreamliner is next. But further on there are the blended wings and even the flying disks. Again not kidding. A dozen PhD’ers at the TU Delft are currently doing research into the ultimate green aircraft. The presented renderings speculatively until now present a flying disk.

The triple lines of pyramids that are planned have the sole purpose of reducing the noise from the ground. The faceting objects form a sound barrier that absorbs and reflects 10 dB off the current noise. The city of Hoofddorp just a couple of fields away will notice the difference, it is said.

Quite funny is that the authorities have tried to absorb and reflect the noise the past years by asking the farmers of the field around the airport to plough deeper. The effects were however not what they hoped for.

Why pyramids and not a continuous sound barrier? To avoid ‘turbulence’ (on the ground?), the report reads, the ‘wall’ has to be perforated. It also says pyramidal forms have been proven (!) in the past to work. So it is not architecture designed by architects, but architecture based on science. That is some argument.

It is then expected that in the next year we will be flooded by designs for the pyramids. If I weren’t aiming for a career in architecture journalism, I would be on the phone asking if I could design one. Or a couple. How cool!

Airtravel Agenda - Landscape of pyramids

Airtravel Agenda - Situation

Airtravel Agenda - Interior

Flying Disk (Copyright TU Delft)