The Waterfront – Cruise Terminal

Larnaca

A cruise terminal, indeed any transportation architecture, is passenger flow driven. However, they are also tourist gateways so need to have a certain arrival ‘event’ about them. At large, distant scale, the Larnaka Port Promontory high rise towers provide the impressive identity and anticipation. The cruise terminal has a different task- marking and exhilaratingly making the act of transition from sea to land.

Our design derived from reflecting the function of the building’s two levels, aiming to make the operation and passenger flow intuitive and self-evident. Ground level collects passengers and baggage. Baggage is then stored for loading at quay level. Passengers are processed and rise to the 1st floor either to board immediately via bridge into the cruise ship, or to wait for boarding. This process allows operations and passengers to be neatly separated, and passengers kept away from the busy and dangerous quay.

Thus a ground floor folded plane/roof collects and stores, with its closed side to the quay. A first floor upper folded plane/roof intersects the ‘collection plane’, forming a double height space for the check-in transition up to the first floor. This upper plane is open to the vessel embarkation side, showing its intent and shading the boarding terrace, and is closed to the towers behind, for the tower residents’ privacy.

The ground floor roof plane; 1. extends at the entrance to shade passengers and the baggage collection conveyor belt; 2. extends to the ‘rear side’ facing the towers to shade baggage handlers for fly and cruise operation, where baggage is arriving in bulk from the airport; 3. extends to the side facing the open sea to provide a viewing deck and also create a secondary entrance/exit serving the off-shore jetty (as opposed to quay/ship in-port).

The top roof plane folds and slides upward at three points, providing wind catchers to take the prevailing westerly wind into the waiting room, and forming colourful ‘markers’ for the building, reminiscent of maritime signal flags.