The Indian Green Building Council has awarded the vast Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport LEED-Gold certification for new construction.

Built in just 37 months, the 5.4 million-square-foot integrated domestic and international terminal opened in July 2010 and is designed to handle as many as  34 million travelers a year, more than doubling the facility's previous capacity.

Indira Gandhi International is the second largest airport in India and the eighth largest is in the world. Designed by HOK International, Terminal 3 is the first airport building in the country to receive a LEED-Gold rating. Earlier, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad received a LEED-Silver rating.

Terminal 3 at the international airport in Delhi emphasizes natural light, construction materials and interior finishes with high recycled content and battery-operated vehicles for transporting travelers between terminals.

Environmental measures at the airport include use of battery-powered vehicles to transport travelers between terminals, construction of a CNG filling station for other support vehicles and an aggressive water management and treatment program. Its features include some 310 rainwater harvesting pits that were built throughout the site. A metro line also was constructed to provide dedicated service to the airport.

The Indian Green Building Council is a member of the World Green Building Council. The IGBC's certification of Indira Gandhi International Airport's Terminal 3 made headlines in India earlier this week. Details of the green building project are available on the council's and the airport's websites.

The airport's collection of statistics and other facts about the site includes a comparison of the time it took to build other major international airport facilities. Designed with a capacity of 45 million travelers a year and constructed with the 2008 Summer Olympics in mind, Beijing Airport's T3 took 60 months to complete. Heathrow's T5, with a capacity of 25 million, also took 60 months to build. The Changi Airport in Singapore took 76 months to construct its T3 terminal, which has a capacity of 22 million.

Top image courtesy of Delhi International Airport Ltd. Inset image courtesy of HOK.