Imagine
going on holiday with your family to the different country. For sure you are
going to use airport services to travel from one place to another. Airports are
some kind of transition stops in our journey, right? But what if I tell you
that they can be the reason and destination in travel themselves?
For further explanation let me first tell you about some fact:
Singapore for years
wins prestige prices for most outstanding airports in the world. Yet they do
not plan on stopping developing and creating new ports with even more amazing
ideas.
Welcome to
the Jewel – the newest pride of Changi airport
Jewel
Changi is a nature-themed entertainment and retail complex on the landside of
Changi Airport in Singapore. It’s signature is the centrepiece world’s tallest
indoor waterfall – The Rain Voertex, which is surrounded by a terraced forest
setting. The waterfall is additionally illuminated with the lights and will
also be a place for multimedia shows. Passengers there are surrounded by the
tropical forest created from many exotic plants. There will also be benches or
unusual playgrounds for children.
But we can
not forget that Jewel is primarily intended to be a service area. It includes 3
connected terminals for easy transfers, shopping center with about 300 retail
and dining outlets, hotels, business-conference area and convenient early
baggage check-in aviation facilities and many more. Changi has 10 floors – five
above ground and five basement levels (The waterfall falls through 7 of them).
“We wanted Jewel to be literally a jewel of Singapore” – said Hung Jean director of Changi
The
airport became an attraction itself luring tourist around the world. Jewel
receives about 300,000 visitations a day. Six months after its soft opening, it
had welcomed 50 millions visitors, exceeding its initial target for whole year.
Jewel’s area is 134,000 m2 and the cost of the entire investment is
estimated to be around 1.32 billion dollars.
I also invite you to watch a video of Jewel’s insight:
Sources:
https://www.jewelchangiairport.com/
https://www.changiairport.com/en/discover/jewel.html
Comments
I had the pleasure to see this fancy airport during my trip to Singapore. I can confirm it looks also great in real life!
First of all, it doesn't feel like an airport at all! There are a lot of plants, a huge waterfall and a lot of calm spaces to chill and relax. I think I haven't been to a better airport! Jewel is also a shopping gallery with a food court which is truly convenient.
This airport teaches us that to rest and relax, we need contact with nature
It's a funny coincidence, I was recently watching a video called "Singapore 8K" on the "Around The World 4K" YouTube channel and I fell in love totally! The city is so beautiful, so is the airport.
After reading about The Jewel, I am 100% sure this will be one of my summer vacation destinations!
It would be great if I could visit the Jewel and Singapore in general.
I am especially interested in exploring gardens and trying out various food outlets.
What makes it even better, is that this is but one of many attractions the city has to offer :)
A few years ago I watched a docummentary in Discovery Channel about interesting Singapore's buildings and some of them was compelling. "Jevel" airport is another great example. After looking at the pcitures that you provided and watching the video I was stunned, the scale, numbers and compelxity were huge. Singapore is a beautiful country, and for me their approach in building airport is great. As you mentioned - the airports are some kind of transition stops in our journey - they are like a let's say calling card for the country. Foreigners can just only imagine what the rest of the country looks like.
Beside the advantages I'm curious how they cope with the additional people at the airport - particulary tourists, which are not using airport services. Places like that are already crowded, but by providing such attractions and views a lot of tourists are also coming here.
Actually, it’s interesting how they are feeling nowadays with pandemic times?
P.S. I love architecture that includes so much greenery in it.
I have to say that I like to explore new airports that I come to and that this one looks incredible. I have never been to Asia but recently I started to think about going there when the pandemic is over. Unfortunately, the global situation when it comes to travel makes me miss exploring the world so much. Pandemic baffled several of my plans and I definetly aim to make them happen in the future. As for Singapore - I admire the tidiness of this place. I look forward to see that in person after a couple of other trips. It is good that, there are some places in the world that are playgrounds for very creative architectural design. I love the idea of incorporating nature with service space. If it follows the certain rules it may make space look and feel magnificent.