Singapore’s Changi airport is known as being amongst the best airports across the globe but it is now recognised as one of the most beautiful in the world after undergoing a multi-million-pound development.
Jewel Changi Airport is a nature-themed entertainment and retail complex. While separate from the airport’s operational areas, it is connected to Changi Airport Terminal 1 and is accessible from Terminals 2 and 3 by a 5-10 minute walk.
A free shuttle bus runs from the airport’s Terminal 4, which takes visitors to the complex.
The Jewel development was designed by Safdie Architects and developed by Jewel Changi Airport Trustee Pte Ltd, a joint venture between Changi Airport and Capitaland.
The whole development took five years and cost a whopping £951 million to complete.
What makes this airport so incredible is that it is home to the world’s largest and tallest indoor waterfall called The Rain Vortex. It measures 40 metres tall and pumps a whopping 500,000 litres of rainwater through the roof – equivalent to a fifth of the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The waterfall isn’t the only popular attraction in the airport; it also boasts one of Asia’s largest indoor gardens. The Shiseido Forest Valley spans five stories and takes up around 22,000 square metres of the middle of the Jewel Changi Airport. It houses 3,000 trees and 60,000 shrubs of 120 species that live in high-altitude tropical forests from across the globe.
It also has a hotel with around 130 rooms, aviation facilities and stores of both local and international brands, including Nike, Marks & Spencer and Zara.
For visitors who would like to know about Changi Airport’s history, there is the Changi Experience Studio – a space with interactive games and displays that not only relate to the airport’s past but also allow people to see the behind-the-scenes of how the airport is run.
When the Jewel Changi Airport was first built, it was expected to see 40 – 50 million visitors in the first year but saw the latter in the first six months of opening. Today, it sees around 300,000 visitors, but that number could soon increase.
The whole of Changi Airport is expanding as Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lawrence Wong, announced that the airport will begin constructing an additional terminal next year to be ready for the mid-2030s.