ISLAMABAD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Islamabad: The Islamabad International Airport to be constructed at Fateh Jang will be one of the most prestigious project equipped with most ultra modern facilities, which will meet all the requirements of Civil Aviation, it is learnt.
The airport will facilitate the smooth handling of the national and international flights and a large number of passengers coming and going out of Pakistan.

The project for which the comprehensive planning was still in the process in some cases is expected to cost billions of rupee and will be completed within a period of four to five years.

The plans for the new international airport which will replace the old Chaklala Airport will be formally approved by the cabinet in due course.

The fate of the present international airport in Chaklala, however could not be known. It is possible that it might be retained as a PAF airport. It was also not confirmed if the airport will be allowed to operate to cater the internal flights.

The foundation laying ceremony of the airport for which thousands of acres of land has already been acquired will be performed by the President Pervez Musharraf in the near future.

It is learnt that the new airport has been planned to meet all the future requirements, landing strips, terminals, parking bays, passenger lounges, cargo houses and above all the chain of administrative buildings and residential colonies.

According to experts the airport will be a huge and gigantic complex and will be an example of its kind in the region.

Since the new airport will be way from Islamabad and Rawalpindi the authorities plan to construct two way wide roads up to airport to meet the increasing traffic. For the convenience of the passengers and also other people arrangements to run special transport are also under consideration.

The Ministry of Defence has since issued directive to the concern district authorities to discourage setting up of private housing societies within a distance of five to ten miles around the airport.

The decision to construct international airport at Fateh Jang was taken by the government about two months back and it was formally announced by the Shaukat Aziz during his last visit to the area, which is the part of his constituency. -- BR

THE CENTAURUS U/C

The Perth office of Woodhead International has won an international paid design competition for a $A600 million mixed-use development in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Woodhead was the only Australian firm invited to take part in a field of five architectural practices.

The development is to be located on a high-profile site in the Pakistani capital and will include a five-star hotel, office tower, apartment tower, a retail centre and extensive formal landscaping.

Woodhead principal and manager of the Perth office, Mark Unger, told WA Business News the project, for a consortium of businessmen, was the biggest land deal in Pakistan’s history.

Having been invited to participate in the competition, invitees were given six weeks to work on their submissions.

Mr Unger said the project design would be run out of the Perth office in conjunction with Pakistan-based firm Arcob Associates, with a December 2008 target for com-pletion of the construction phase.

“The Perth office has never taken the lead on a project like this; it is one of the better design offices and is relatively proximate compared to our offices over east,” Mr Unger said.

The competition theme was based on the principle of ‘Chahar Bagh’, which translates to ‘four gardens’ in Persian, a planning principle brought to Pakistan by the Moguls thousands of years ago, according to Mr Unger.

“We divided the site into four parts consisting of apartments, the office and hotel tower, retail and the gardens,” he said.

“The scheme has proceeded into design development and consolidates Woodhead Inter-national’s presence in South-East Asia and the sub-continent.”

Woodhead has seven offices in Australia, two in China and one in Singapore.

The Woodhead announcement comes amid moves by several other Australian firms into Asia and the Middle East, attracted by projects collectively worth tens of billions of dollars.

Consulting engineering firm GHD has several projects in the region, including master planning in conjunction with Woods Bagot, for Dubai Maritime City, a new $US1 billion infrastructure project.

GHD has also been appointed as project manager for one of the world’s largest urban developments, known as The Palms, in Dubai.

Architecture firm The Cox Group also recently beat international competitors to win a major university project planned for the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, and architects Woods Bagot last year designed the $400 million College of Technology in Doha, Qatar.

Perth-based BG&E is providing structural engineering services for a 21-tower residential apartment project being constructed by Multiplex in Dubai, and is also working on three other high-rise developments, including a 70-storey tower.