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Moshe Safdie Safdie Architects Lead Design Architect
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Like many airports, Singapore’s Changi Airport has grown and evolved incrementally, adding much-needed new terminals in 1981, 1990, and 2008. By 2012, pressure had again mounted on the airport, prompting officials to consider an addition south of Terminal 1, on the site of a parking area between the terminal and the airport’s Air Traffic Control Tower. They also started to consider building something new; something Changi and other airports had never possessed. Until recently, airports have focused primarily on airport operations and the direct needs of passengers. In the last few years, a new component has been added: concentrating retail in passengers’ path to generate income. This strategy, generated largely by duty free outlets, expanded to a full offering of shops, from fashion to electronics. While these developments generally occurred on the airside of terminals, the landside was also transforming. Airport cities, which incorporated hotels, office spaces, regional transportation centers, and warehousing and logistics facilities, were increasingly evolving into urban centers, serving both passengers and the urban region at-large. This evolution must have been on the minds of Changi officials, as well as the government of Singapore, when they conceived the program for Jewel. The facility, serving passengers, airport employees, transit passengers, and the citizens of Singapore on both the air and land sides, would offer a much wider program than any airport facility before. According to their brief, Jewel would have to be a destination and a major attraction. Retail would therefore be augmented by entertainment, and a wide range of food and beverage options, and, as the program stated, a major attraction. Changi’s leadership recognized that to make Jewel the destination it had hoped for, it had to attract passengers to choose Singapore as its endpoint over competitive airports in the region. They launched a competition—which has become customary for all major Singapore projects on public land— for developers and architects worldwide to help determine what this attraction should be. The design competition was launched in September 2012. Each developer-architect team would propose a profitable, financially self-sustaining plan to conceive what the complex should be and what attractions it might incorporate. The winning developer would enter into a joint venture with Changi, sharing in the cost and income generated by the project. Thus, fantasies and creative ideas had to be balanced with compelling financial models. We already had an established relationship with our partners, CapitaLand, with three major projects under construction: Sky Habitat, a residential
Jewel was inspired by the sacred and mythical gardens of several cultures
