Blank Frank's Stansted Statistics
Last updated 24/02/2001
Having a couple of hours to wait in Stansted
Airport, I decided not to waste time eating snacks and
pursuing the many wonderful retail experiences on offer. Rather, I set out
to answer a couple of dimensional questions that many of you will
undoubtedly have asked yourselves when exposed to the vastness of the
Main Terminal. Undeterred by the complete non-availability of a measuring tape,
and unwilling to take the easy route of just going up to an Information
Desk and asking (we all know that a slap in the face often offends) or
contacting the architect, I decided to see what I could figure out armed
only with a sheet of A4-sized paper as my measurement standard and a
WindowsCE-based PPC to perform calculations and keep notes. Below is a
picture I took of the building to give you some idea of what I'm on about, and
below that is my collection of stats, with accompanying notes. Please
be aware that this was done for entertainment, and the figures are all
somewhat approximate (but within an order of magnitude I imagine) and
should not be relied upon for anything serious. If anyone cares to send
verified measurements, I'll be happy to include their figures as a
suitably-attributed footnote in due course. I hope you'll agree it was
time well-spent, and will be inspired to seek out other measurement
challenges to overcome. I would like to
apologise to anyone there at the time who was disturbed at the sight
of someone pacing up and down counting tiles and windows, and staring
at a piece of paper on the floor, but, hey, it was cheap entertainment
for all concerned.
The Stats
Floor tiles
89100 tiles, each 600mm square, not allowing for any missing due to
emergency exits and service access points cut in the floor. This represents
the tiled internal floor space (330 x 270 tiles) - the front and back of
the building project beyond the floor space.
Windows
1200 windows forming the vertical faces around the internal space of the
building. The windows are approximately 3.6 metres long by 1.8 metres high,
stacked 6 high.
Roof
The area covered by the roof is square, aproximately 198 metres per
side, supported by 36 tubular structures.
Grout
The total length of grout used between the tiles on the internal floor
space is approximately 106560 metres = 66.21 miles.
Stop Press - update 24/02/2001
Well, I think we can safely say This Site Under Construction, and I don't mean the web page. Stansted has embarked upon a major expansion exercise, which will run for the next several years, increasing the terminal floorspace, facilities and passenger capacity by a commercially attractive percentage. The photo was taken in early February, 2001, and shows the bit being added on to one end of the existing terminal building. There is more to come. The bit you can see has an extra 120 vertical panes of glass, for starters. My stats will get well messed up, but it's too early to say by how much so I'll leave them as they are just now. Don't know when I'll next be there, but I'll keep updating the page as and when.
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