Foster + Partners’ Spaceport America Terminal and Hangar Facility

Although the competition entry documentation describes the view of the Terminal building from the air as a reference to the logo of Virgin Galactic, the anchor tenant of the New Mexico Spaceport, the Terminal building undeniably appeals to our collective sexual unconscious. The Terminal building relates well to the incredibly captivating landscape of New Mexico: In my opinion, it is indescribably voluptuous and beautifully proportioned, indeed lying subtly and sumptuously on the landscape.

Foster + Partners, according to the competition entry documentation, planned to minimize the Terminal building’s visual impact from the west, where the historic Jornada de la Muerte (Journey of Death) on the Camino Real is found. The Terminal building’s “wings” are evocative of a dancer’s arms gracefully outspread, head bowing to the east, providing anything but a minimal visual experience.

Spaceport America Project Data

• Client: New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA)
• Tenant: Virgin Galactic
• Site Area: 300,000 sq. ft.
• Gross Area: 110,000 sq. ft.
• Arch. & Eng. PM, Structural & MEP Eng.: URS Corporation
• Architectural Lead Design: Foster + Partners
• Architecture: SMPC Architects
• Environmental Design/LEED: PHA Consult
• Cost Estimating: Balis and Company
• Sustainability: Designed to achieve LEED certification; Thermal labyrinth formed in rocks under the earth berm to cool the building; Photovoltaic and solar panels; Thin shell concrete roof for thermal mass; Underfloor radiant cooling and heating; Natural ventilation in mid season

Visitors and astronauts are likely to be slowly drawn from their engagement with the Masai Mara-like valley surrounding the Terminal building to a total immersion in the architecture. The procession to and through the building is dramatically choreographed. As visitors steadily lose sight of and touch with the landscape, they become enveloped in the gorge cut from the circular ellipse of the building. Upon arrival at the iris of the Virgin Galactic eye, visitors on the mezzanine level can see the expanse of the hangar’s interior and are faced with a two-story unbroken expanse of window that brings the Spaceport’s runway into juxtaposition with the backdrop of the Mesilla Valley’s mountainous edge. The clerestory oculus directly in the center bathes the interior with its white desert sunlight by day and cosmic blue lighting by night.

The next and equally dramatic procession suspends visitors over the expansive interior and exterior of the hangar, aprons, and desert. The White Knight Two carrier and Space Ship Two spacecraft can be seen from the bridge cutting through the space to the expansive mezzanine and glass wall for watching the launches, arrivals, and celebrations of the astronauts and their families from above. The Mesilla Valley setting creates a dramatic interplay of primitive and sophisticated and of ruggedness and refinement: the harsh reality of the desert enhances the almost watery sleekness of the steel and glass Terminal building and carbon fiber of the spaceships.

The Terminal building includes green building features, as well. Foster + Partners design incorporates a low environmental impact and earthen convection cooling tubes. Foster + Partners’ primal union of earthly and stellar will only serve to amplify the truly exhilarating experience provided to space travelers by Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America.

Foster + Partners' Spaceport America - Images

Foster + Partners' Spaceport America - Drawings