Jewel of Singapore
Landing at Changi Airport, you kinda get that feeling that you are in one of the world’s best airports. Come April 2019 and it gets even better. The ‘Jewel’ - a distinctive dome-shaped façade made of glass and steel, designed by a consortium comprising Safdie Architects, led by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie, as well as architects from RSP Architects Planners and Engineers and Beno, adds to Changi Airport’s appeal as one of the world’s leading air hubs.
Singapore’s newest multi-dimensional tourist complex, Jewel Changi Airport, built at a reportedly US$ 1.25 billion is due to open its doors on 17th April. The much - anticipated facility that will have a total ten storey’s, five above ground and five below, will connect the airport’s existing four terminals. Featuring 280 retail stores and the Yotelair Singapore Changi Airport hotel with 130 keys., plus two nature trails that meander through the forest climbing 30 vertical meters from bottom to top, travellers flying to Singapore will marvel at the new ‘magical garden’.
One of the ‘eyes catching’ features of the 130,000 square metre ‘Jewel’ or rather the ‘jewel-on- the-crown’ is the indoor waterfall called Rain Votex. The Rain Votex will be the world’s tallest indoor waterfall transforming in a ‘light and sound’ show in the evening. Additionally, rainwater is funneled into the waterfall and harvested for building services and landscape irrigation systems. At peak conditions, water will flow through the oculus at more than 10,000 gallons per minute.
“I wanted to explore a new kind of urban space, a space you go to as a matter of course, because you need to shop, because you’re flying out somewhere, and yet it’s a garden — somewhere that says ‘let’s rethink what the public realm is, let’s rethink what it is to shop. I think one of the reasons (we won) the bid was that the other submissions looked like malls and felt like malls, while this one, you don’t think of it as a mall, because it’s a new kind of experience. It makes us rethink what urban centres could be like if we stretch our thinking,” architect Safdie said.
Singapore’s Changi Airport is the world’s seventh busiest airport for international traffic. In 2018, the airport welcomed record-breaking 65.6 million customers. The Jewel will first open to Singapore residents between 11 and 16 April. On 17 April, the new facility will welcome its first international guests.
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