How Regional Identity is Finding Its Place in Airport Design

India’s aviation network is expanding beyond its traditional metropolitan centres. From 74 operational airports in 2014, the country now has 165, with regional connectivity bringing more Tier II and Tier III cities into the national air network. The next phase is set to extend this further, with the Modified UDAN scheme envisioning 100 new airports from existing unserved airstrips.

This expansion is changing more than the way people travel. It is bringing contemporary infrastructure into regions shaped by different histories, landscapes, cultures and languages. For designers, this diversity presents an opportunity to create contemporary airport environments that are deeply rooted in the character of their regions. 

Designing for a Sense of Place

India’s regional identities are expressed through an extraordinarily varied cultural and linguistic landscape. Each place carries its own visual traditions, materials, crafts, patterns of gathering and ways of responding to climate. Airports can draw from this richness, not by reproducing familiar motifs, but by translating these local influences into contemporary architectural experiences.

Technology expands what is possible in this translation. Computational design, digital fabrication, new material systems and interactive media can allow regional patterns, craft traditions and environmental principles to be reinterpreted at the scale and complexity required by contemporary infrastructure. Local identity can therefore become part of the architecture itself rather than an applied decorative layer.

Climate provides another avenue for this exploration. Shading, daylight, landscape, water management and material choices can respond to local conditions while drawing from established environmental knowledge. Principles such as shaded colonnades, courtyards and thermal mass can be reinterpreted through contemporary systems, making environmental performance part of the architectural response.

From Architectural Identity to Shared Experience

The social dimension is equally important. Airports in India are experienced as social spaces as much as functional ones. Families gather to see people off, meals are shared, meetings happen, and waiting becomes part of the experience. Local food, art, craft and cultural programming can therefore give regional character a meaningful presence within these shared spaces.

This thinking can extend beyond the terminal itself. As airports become part of larger development, mobility, landscape, public space and surrounding uses can be considered together, creating a stronger relationship between infrastructure and the city. As India’s aviation network grows, its airports can become a new canvas for expressing regional identity: rooted in place, informed by local knowledge and realised through the possibilities of contemporary architecture.