In the four years since the Paris Air Show was last staged at the Le Bourget site in June 2019, the most visible change by far is the exhibition center’s new Hall 3. The eye-catching structure has taken seven years to build and was completed on January 31.
The ambitious expansion has boosted the available space for exhibiting companies by 60 percent from 12,040 square meters to 19,260 square meters (207,319 square feet), which covers more than the area of three soccer pitches. To give more scope for larger exhibits, the height of the ceiling has increased from five to nine meters.
Given higher expectations for major events like international air shows to have a much lower carbon footprint, environmental sustainability has been a major guiding principle for the Hall 3 project. The new structure is built around a 20,000-square-meter wood framework that used 2,400 cubic meters of wood.
According to show organizers SIAE, all aspects of construction were conducted in accordance with the latest HQE (High Quality Environmental) and BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology) certification requirements. Over the 200,000 person-hours worked on the project, around 20,000 focused on what the company calls “social and professional” integration.
As much as 94 percent of materials cleared during the demolition of the former Hall 3 structure were reused, and 65 percent exclusively on the Le Bourget site. The new building’s carbon footprint has been assessed at less than 16 kilotons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which factors in the amount of CO2 produced from the consumption of fossil fuels and also the environmental impact of producing cement for construction.
The new Hall 3 is making its public debut for the Paris Air Show. The building is set to star on an even bigger stage next year when, along with the whole Paris-Le Bourget Exhibition Center, it hosts the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. Hall 3 will house the main media center for the games.