The proposed design of Beijing's new airport reflects the country's rich cultural history and the remarkable future predicted for the country, according to the architects working on the project.

"The overall symmetry of the project and the flowing, curving forms integrate the design into a harmonious composition which evokes Chinese culture - its colors and materials are also emblematic of Chinese traditional visual language," said a spokesman for British company Zaha Hadid Architects.

The design sketch for the new airport was released on Monday. The star-shaped terminal will include "an integrated multimodal transport center featuring direct links to local and national rail services including the high-speed rail", the spokesman said.

The airport is designed to be "a key transport hub within Beijing's growing infrastructure development and a catalyst for the region's economic development, including the city of Tianjin and Hebei province".

The terminal has been designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and the French architectural firm ADP Ingenierie.

Airport specialist ADPI won an international design competition for the project that was launched in 2011. The Beijing New Airport Headquarters brought ADPI and the British firm together in October 2014 to develop the design.

The airport will be located in the capital's southern Daxing district. The terminal will initially accommodate 45 million passengers per year, and when complete will be the world's largest airport passenger terminal.

"The design celebrates the excitement of air travel expressed as a sequence of dynamic and fluid forms. We have developed broad, flowing rooflines over large, column-free spaces to provide a sense of scale and grandeur to Beijing's new gateway," the spokesman said.

All the pathways through the terminal will converge in a flowing central space, creating a multi-layer "urban space" and providing an "exciting place of convergence" for travelers, he added.

The design will reduce passenger transfer distances between departure gates and minimize distances between ground transportation and the aircraft.

Construction of the 79.9 billion yuan ($13.1 billion) airport began on Dec 26 and will take about five years to complete.

ADPI stressed the design's low carbon status, saying: "(It) provides a unique opportunity to embed sustainability at the heart of the design philosophy. It will aspire to be Asia's leading green hub of choice."

The aim is to minimize dependence on natural resources so that the airport will "tread lightly on the earth", the company said.

The airport will be able to handle 72 million passengers, 2 million metric tons of cargo and mail, and 620,000 flights annually by 2025, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, which approved the plan on Dec 15. It is expected to become operational in 2019.

The new hub is being developed to relieve pressure on the Beijing Capital International Airport, completed in 2008 and now operating beyond its capacity.

Carlotta Clivio contributed to this story.

(China Daily USA 02/13/2015 page4)