In Baku, the Woods Bagot team alongside Buro Happold , Arup and Azerbaijan Airlines are working to design a new international terminal at Heydar Alijev International. The terminal seems ultramodern, with its gently colored landscape sprinkled with large organic-shaped giant wooden “cocoons” covered in latticework designed by the turkish architecture studio, Autoban.

The wooden structures cover all of the passenger areas inside the terminal building by engineering firm Arup, which is split over four levels. Concave external glass walls lean out from their bases, curving around the corners to wrap the entire structure.
“The main idea was to make it different from other airports,” Autoban cofounder Seyhan Ozdemir “While traveling has become a huge part of our lives, we believe as designers it’s our goal to make it as enjoyable as possible for the public by changing the fundamentals of such transportation hubs.”

Wooden shells on the top level, named as “cocoons” by the designers, are for house cafes, bars, shopping kiosks and other facilities including a children’s play area and luggage storage space.
“The use of the cocoons is flexible and it is expected they will change over time as the airport terminal evolves,” Ozdemir said.
“We adopted the architectural structure of the terminal and played with micro-architecture within the cavernous space to bring it down to a more human scale, so that it felt like a nest,” said Ozdemir.

Similar wooden patterns cover the curved edges of floor plates around atrium spaces and escalators.
Hexagonal skylights puncture the domed roof, interspersed with lights in similar shapes integrated into a frame of triangular sections that cover the ceiling.
Triangular grills also pattern the ceiling of baggage reclaim, mirrored by the layout of floor tiles.