Jewel Changi Airport to open in 2019

Features include an expansive indoor forest, the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, and one of the world’s largest gridshell structures spanning 650 feet with glass and steel

Designed by Safdie Architects, Jewel Changi Airport, the newest development at Singapore’s award-winning Changi Airport, will open in the first half of 2019. It combines an intense marketplace and a paradise garden to create a new center – “the heart and soul” of Changi Airport. Once open, Jewel will establish a new paradigm for community-centric airport design, extending the airport’s principal function as a transit hub to create an interactive civic plaza and marketplace, combining landside airport operations with expansive indoor gardens and waterfall leisure facilities, retail, restaurants, and a hotel as well as other spaces for community activities.

Images: Safdie Architects/JCAD

Linked to the city’s public transportation grid and with open access to Terminal 1, and to Terminals 2 and 3 via pedestrian bridges, Jewel engages both in-transit passengers as well as the public of Singapore. Entirely publicly accessible, the 134,000m2 (144,000ft2) glass-enclosed toroidal building asserts a new model for airports as a destination for community activity, entertainment, and shopping.

BuroHappold, working closely with Safdie Architects, applied the most advanced building information modeling (BIM) tools to optimize the design for performance and constructability, engineering the Jewel’s steel structure and developing the building’s facade systems. The team took on the never-seen-before glass and steel roof structure which spans more than 200 meters (650 feet) at its widest point, with only intermittent supports in the garden which results in a near column-free interior. The geometry of the roof is based on a semi-inverted toroid, or donut, with an indoor rain-fed waterfall at its center. Buro Happold worked with the team and specialist subcontractor MERO to develop the ‘Jewel node,’ the precision steel connectors which make up the diagrid roof system. The components were prefabricated in Germany and bolted together on site in Singapore.

Image: Safdie Architects/JCAD

When completed, Jewel will stand among the world’s largest gridshells, with approximately 6,000 steel nodes connecting the steel beams and glass panels and more than 9,304 individually numbered specialty glass panels weighing approximately 250kg each.

Jewel weaves together an experience of nature and the marketplace, dramatically asserting the idea of the airport as an uplifting and vibrant urban center, engaging travelers, visitors, and residents, and echoing Singapore’s reputation as ‘The City in the Garden.’
Moshe Safdie

Drawing section through the retail and gardens. Image: JCAD/Safdie Architects

Consultant Team:

Atelier Ten: Environmental & Sustainable Design
Benoy: Retail Interiors
Buro Happold: Building Structure and Facades
ICN International Singapore: Executive Landscape Architect
Lighting Planners Associates: Lighting Design
Mott MacDonald: MEP
Pentagram and Entro Communications: Signage/Wayfinding
PWP Landscape Architecture: Landscape Design
RSP Architects Planners & Engineers Pte Ltd: Executive Architect
RSP Architects Planners & Engineers Pte Ltd: Structure
WET: Water Feature

Features include an expansive indoor forest, the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, and one of the world’s largest gridshell structures spanning 650 feet with glass and steel

Designed by Safdie Architects, Jewel Changi Airport, the newest development at Singapore’s award-winning Changi Airport, will open in the first half of 2019. It combines an intense marketplace and a paradise garden to create a new center – “the heart and soul” of Changi Airport. Once open, Jewel will establish a new paradigm for community-centric airport design, extending the airport’s principal function as a transit hub to create an interactive civic plaza and marketplace, combining landside airport operations with expansive indoor gardens and waterfall leisure facilities, retail, restaurants, and a hotel as well as other spaces for community activities.


Images: Safdie Architects/JCAD

Linked to the city’s public transportation grid and with open access to Terminal 1, and to Terminals 2 and 3 via pedestrian bridges, Jewel engages both in-transit passengers as well as the public of Singapore. Entirely publicly accessible, the 134,000m2 (144,000ft2) glass-enclosed toroidal building asserts a new model for airports as a destination for community activity, entertainment, and shopping.

BuroHappold, working closely with Safdie Architects, applied the most advanced building information modeling (BIM) tools to optimize the design for performance and constructability, engineering the Jewel’s steel structure and developing the building’s facade systems. The team took on the never-seen-before glass and steel roof structure which spans more than 200 meters (650 feet) at its widest point, with only intermittent supports in the garden which results in a near column-free interior. The geometry of the roof is based on a semi-inverted toroid, or donut, with an indoor rain-fed waterfall at its center. Buro Happold worked with the team and specialist subcontractor MERO to develop the ‘Jewel node,’ the precision steel connectors which make up the diagrid roof system. The components were prefabricated in Germany and bolted together on site in Singapore.

Image: Safdie Architects/JCAD

When completed, Jewel will stand among the world’s largest gridshells, with approximately 6,000 steel nodes connecting the steel beams and glass panels and more than 9,304 individually numbered specialty glass panels weighing approximately 250kg each.

Jewel weaves together an experience of nature and the marketplace, dramatically asserting the idea of the airport as an uplifting and vibrant urban center, engaging travelers, visitors, and residents, and echoing Singapore’s reputation as ‘The City in the Garden.’
Moshe Safdie

Drawing section through the retail and gardens. Image: JCAD/Safdie Architects

 

 

Consultant Team:

Atelier Ten: Environmental & Sustainable Design
Benoy: Retail Interiors
Buro Happold: Building Structure and Facades
ICN International Singapore: Executive Landscape Architect
Lighting Planners Associates: Lighting Design
Mott MacDonald: MEP
Pentagram and Entro Communications: Signage/Wayfinding
PWP Landscape Architecture: Landscape Design
RSP Architects Planners & Engineers Pte Ltd: Executive Architect
RSP Architects Planners & Engineers Pte Ltd: Structure
WET: Water Feature

 

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