New Airport Design Poor

Recently, the Cayman Islands Airport Authority, CIAA, has been presenting to a series of local groups including CASE, the new design for the proposed updated Owen Roberts Terminal. The current design has been rejected by the Architectural community as poor and inappropriate for the terminal.

The proposal calls for the extension of the existing terminal on all sides as well as a significant extension upstairs to accomodate all of the programme requirements. The functionality of the new terminal seems to be okay however the 'pastiche' of over-scaled residential elements on the exterior was not accepted by CASE members as appropriate for a building of this scale especially as it is the first impression one will have of the Cayman Islands. The well known and liked “A” frames will be removed at the request of the current CIAA Board.

The proposed glazed jet-ways to the aircraft provide a bizarre contrast to the multi-coloured, segmented building. Undoubtedly, while appearing alien to the building, they will also be incredibly hot or very expensive to air-condition. The design will only accomodate 767 sized aircrafts. The interior "sketches" currently show local residential detailing in various areas.

No budget was given for the terminal that will include separate arrival and departure lounge for domestic and international passengers, as well as a very large departure lounge.

Government Office Accomodation Project

The Cayman Islands Government has issued a Design/Build tender for its new 200,000 square foot building in central George Town. The Building will contain the Executive branches of Government and sectors of Governments finance related departments and Authorities. Project budget is said to be in the CI$50M region.

Three Construction teams are vying for the tender however Government recently has had to offer a Stipend of CI$100,000 each to the two loosing bidders to ensure that all of the bidders remain in the running. It has been said that the extreme cost of preparing the tender exceeds the commercial risk that some were willing to take.

Bids are currently due in late April 2007 with completion of the building in fall of 2009.

New Walkers Office Building

Offshore & Local Law firm WALKERS announced its new office building recently and initial reviews by some in the local Architectural community have been critical, not only of the design but the fact that the firm went overseas to London based firms for services.

The design, which appears to be a warped or bent ( 'chamfered' )seven storey box with diagonal structural or 'aesthetic' members across its face, does not seem to be suitable for an island in the Caribbean. The face is puntuated by various rectangular windows giving an appearance of a crumpled computer programming card from the seventies. The building will contain a full height atrium to allow light to all internal spaces.

In the past the Planning Department and the Central Planning Authority have attempted to have building design make refrence to "local Design". That now appears to have gone aside and Pandoras box has been opened with this latest design.