The stopover Jewel Changi airport is transforming the travel experience with the addition of a wellbeing-boosting indoor forest

A departure lounge like no other, Singapore’s new sanctuary is a triumph for aviation and architecture

Once the epitome of bland, functional style, airports are getting a fresh look as a new wave of pioneering design elevates layovers with statement landscaping – and it’s transforming the travel experience. Leading the way is the ambitious complex at Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport, an innovative design by Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie. In a bid to create a ‘paradise garden’ that visitors would come back to again and again, Safdie crafted the ‘Forest Valley’. This huge indoor garden, complete with the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, sits at the heart of the airport’s newest terminal – a distinctive glass dome, criss-crossed with steel supports that took five years and almost £1 billion to build.

‘The Jewel complex juxtaposes nature with a vibrant marketplace, dramatically extending the concept of it as an urban centre,’ says Safdie. Nature is introduced with some 900 trees and 60,000 shrubs. Two walking trails climb up through five levels of palm-dotted greenery to the Canopy Bridge, a dramatic glass-bottomed platform suspended 23 metres above the terminal. And at the centre of this spectacular indoor forest is the airport’s showstopper, the ‘Rain Vortex’. The 40-metre waterfall funnels natural rainwater down into the airport lounge’s irrigation system.

Adding another dimension to Safdie’s inventive take on what an airport can offer is the capacity for play at Jewel, where, alongside airy terrace restaurants and refreshed retail spaces, you’ll find the Discovery Slides – toted as Singapore’s first large-scale interactive sculpture – a hedge maze and a mirror room. ‘The world-class shopping and dining, seamlessly integrated with lush foliage, fulfils the needs of increasingly discerning travellers for a meaningful, experiential journey,’ says CEO Hung Jean, pointing to a new era for airport design. Considering Singapore’s nickname as ‘the City in the Garden’, there seems no better introduction to the country than this verdant sanctuary ( jewelchangiairport.com).