Being resistant to earthquakes and built from locally sourced materials are two of the key sustainability drivers behind the design of Portland International Airport’s new terminal, writes Vince Granato, chief projects officer at the Port of Portland.
It was more than a decade ago, back in 2011, when the conversation about building a new main terminal at Portland International Airport (PDX) turned from should we make upgrades to how should we make upgrades.
The renovations to increase capacity, flexibility and resilience needed to happen, and also presented us with an opportunity to make the building more sustainable. But when we initially asked people who work at PDX, live around PDX and travel through PDX what they wanted us to do, their answer was simple: don’t change it.
So, the project team set out with a mission to make PDX bigger, while doubling down on what people already loved about our airport.
Approaching it differently
When the concept was first introduced to build PDX’s new main terminal out of wood, it was met with a question: Can it be built in a way that’s better for our communities?
For most of the construction industry, lumber is anonymous – and that makes sense when you consider that most clients want a single, consistent product.
But we wanted to approach this big project differently. So, together, the team made a plan to not only source the wood locally (which we did), but to source it in a way that creates better outcomes for our regional forests and the people who manage them.
All images by Ema Peter.
We tapped industry pros to help us define success and a way to get there. With five custom sourcing pathways, we prioritised conserving and restoring forest ecosystems, while creating economic opportunity for landowners, sawmills, and fabricators across the region.
Transparent sourcing had never been achieved at this scale before, and many initially said it couldn’t be done. But enough partners agreed to try and see how much wood could be traced back to its forest of origin.
It took six years of collaboration with sustainable forestry pros, multigenerational foresters, and mills who were all passionate about doing the work in a way that balances ecological and economic values.
It was the first attempt at anything like this and reached targets no other projects had. In the end, 100% of the 3.7 million board feet came from within 300 miles of the airport, which kept the money in the region.
Some 72% came from landowners who are FSC-certified or practicing ecological forestry. And 30% can be traced back to its forest of origin – a number that’s typically zero for large construction projects.
A feat of engineering
The undulating mass timber roof was built in 18 modular cassettes, each weighing about 1,000,000lbs, and assembled in a prefabrication yard west of the terminal. Then, in the middle of the night when no flights were operating, they were moved one-by-one across the airfield using self-propelled modular transporters.
The cassettes are held up by 34 steel Y-columns, which replaced 200 seismically outdated columns.
With fewer fixed points, the terminal has far more flexibility to address changes in air travel and has better passenger flow.
Due to PDX’s geographical location within the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the airport’s new roof was designed to withstand a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.
Seismic isolation bearings at the top of the Y-columns allow lateral movement up to 24 inches during a seismic event, while a hanging curtain wall is attached to the roof with hinged connections that permit it to slide and pivot relative to the structure below.
The curtain wall is a first of its kind. During construction, the team had to pre-load the roof every 10 feet to simulate the weight of the glass windows, then take the weights off to install the glass – similar to a teeter-totter.
This project presented some of the biggest challenges our team of engineers, architects and construction professionals have faced in their careers, and they safely solved one technical puzzle after another.
In early 2025, the final four cassettes will move into place and PDX’s visually stunning and seismically resilient roof will be complete.
Creating a walk in the forest
Beyond the seismic and sustainability reasons, building the new PDX almost entirely with wood was an intentional choice to give travellers a sense of place.
Drawing inspiration from what’s right in our backyard, ZGF Architects designed the space to evoke a walk in the forest. Wood is such a rich part of our regional history and landscape and when travellers arrive at PDX, they’ll know exactly where they are.
PDX brings elements of the great outdoors inside the airport and uses biophilic design (or the idea that introducing nature and natural elements into interior spaces can help reduce your blood pressure and make you feel more at ease) to create a sense of calm in a busy environment.
Travellers are surrounded by lush greenery and 72 full-grown trees forming a mini greenway in the core of the airport.
The thoughtfully placed skylights mimic sunrays peeking through evergreen trees, and scenes of our region’s natural landscapes play across 120-foot-wide video screens. It’s a uniquely PDX experience.
Larger square footage, less carbon footprint
An airport is a 24/7 operation, and it takes a lot of energy to move people and goods in the sky, so we explored every opportunity to save energy on the ground. The architects and engineers who designed the new main enabled us to nearly double capacity at PDX, while cutting the energy use per square foot in half.
By current counts, the choices around design and local materials used will reduce the carbon footprint of the project’s structure by 70%. But other factors contributing to the big savings, include:
• A ground-source heat pump – which will be one of the largest in Oregon – that cuts the heating plant’s use of fossil fuels by 95%;
• 50 skylights and a 36-foot-high window wall that illuminates 60% of the terminal with daylight (even under January’s cloudy skies) and reduce the need for electrical lighting;
• And fixtures (i.e. toilets, sinks, and urinals) that require between 15 and 50% less water. Plus, the airport will soon start using its own well water to flush the toilets and urinals so that by the time 35 million people a year travel through PDX, each visitor will use 50% less water from Portland’s potable water supply.
Sustainability was also a driving factor behind the decision to open the main terminal in two phases, with the remaining 40% of the terminal scheduled to open in early 2026 – marking the end of PDX Next.
This phased approach allowed us to reuse as much of the old terminal structure as was safe, renovating roughly 500,000 of the existing structure and expanding the terminal with new construction.
Between now and the end of Phase 2, our teams are working to build out even more local shops and restaurants, permanent exit lanes, and meet and greet areas, in addition to moving those final roof cassettes.
And through collaboration and innovative thinking on behalf of our partners, we’re doing it all without ever closing the airport.
We’re incredibly proud of what the region came together to build and can’t wait for everyone to see the finished PDX.