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SAMPLE FEATURE ARTICLE: JEWEL CHANGI WHAT DO YOU
AIRPORT NOTICE?
UPDATE
At Singapore’s Changi Airport,
a New Jewel Shines
By Sanjay Surana
April 11, 2019
The Forest Valley and Rain Vortex waterfall inside the
Jewel.Credit...Changi Airport Group
The 10-story Jewel, offering visitors an enchanted forest,
astounding indoor waterfall and more than 280 stores and
restaurants, hopes to make the Singapore airport a
destination in itself.
At first glance, visitors to the new Jewel complex at
Singapore’s Changi Airport might feel like they have entered
some mythical dimension. An indoor waterfall — the tallest
in the world — drops 130 feet from an oculus the size of a
bus. A Canopy Park has nets for bouncing and walking strung
as high as 80 feet above the ground. A forest of 1,400 trees
provides lush greenery and shade.
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The multi-floored Jewel, an asymmetrical donut-shaped
building between the airport’s existing terminals and the air-
traffic control tower, opens officially on April 17. The result of
four years of construction and $1.25 billion in investment,
the commercial and entertainment structure aims to do what
no other building has done: make an airport the destination.
“Singapore is a tourist destination, but 30 percent of the
people coming through Changi don’t visit,” said Ivan Tan, a
senior vice president for Changi Airport Group. The country
wants to draw those passengers on connecting flights, get
them out to experience the unique taste of Singapore, so that
they might come back for a longer stay.
The centerpiece of the building is the Forest Valley with a
terraced garden, and its heart is the renowned Rain Vortex
waterfall. The top floor, called Canopy Park, features
bouncing and walking nets, a 165-foot sky bridge, two mazes
(one with mirrors, the other hedges), a giant slide, and eight
bars and restaurants. The exterior of the 10-story building,
which was designed by the architect Moshe Safdie and built
by CapitaLand, an Asian developer, is made of glass and
crisscrossed with an aluminum-and-steel framework,
allowing the entire interior to be bathed in natural light.
“Airports are places of anxiety, and I’d like people to be
uplifted and serene and feel good about themselves,” said Mr.
Safdie. The Jewel is “the first airport center that serves
passengers, airport employees and the people of the city no
matter what time of the day, no matter which part of Jewel,
no matter for what purpose.”
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The Petal Garden in Canopy Park.Credit...Changi Airport
Group
The Jewel is an airport mall on steroids: In total, there are
280 retail outlets and food and beverage stops. Familiar
stores line the floors — Foot Locker, Nike, the first Shake
Shack in Southeast Asia — as well as local Singaporean
brands like Naiise and Supermama. Other amenities include
a 130-room Yotelair hotel, a full-size supermarket, an 11-
screen cinema, and — don’t forget it’s an airport — early
check-in counters.
In 2018, nearly 66 million passengers flew through the
airport, a number that continues to rise. “There is growing
demand for air travel,” Mr. Tan said, “Changi had to see how
to have capacity to meet that demand.”
Mr. Tan and other officials hope that the amenities will lure
travelers to leave the terminals during their layovers, even for
a short time. For that reason, the Jewel was designed to
adjoin one terminal and link to two others by footbridges,
overlooking the spectacular Rain vortex and forest.
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Greenery, water and natural light.Credit...Changi Airport
Group
As entry to the Jewel does not require airport security
screening, Mr. Tan believes locals will also arrive in droves.
Officials estimate between 40 to 50 million people will visit
during the first year, he said, 60 percent of whom are
expected to be residents.
“Gardens have always been a place of pleasure,” said Charu
Kokate, the principal at Safdie Architects who oversaw the
project. On a recent tour of the Jewel, Ms. Kokate carefully
pointed out the marble floors from China, lava stone blocks
from Indonesia and other design considerations that were
curated for this state-of-the-art building. “There were many
layers to the project,” she said.
“The sky, the waterfall, the people hidden by the landscaping.
Through the glass roof you can see a plane flying overhead,
up there are reflections of people next to the slide,” she said.
“It’s very active and yet tranquil.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/travel/singapores-
changi-airport-jewel.html
SAMPLE FEATURE ARTICLE #1: JEWEL SARAH TEO JY
