Spanning four terminals, Changi Airport covers a large floor area of over one million sqm, or 156 football fields. From the interior design concepts right down to the materials, furniture, counters and signages, it is a mammoth task to ensure that every part of the terminal has a cohesive design, so that passengers can enjoy a holistic Changi Experience. 

The Crystal Garden at T3 transit’s central piazza offers an enchanting experience

In comes Changi Airport Group (CAG)’s Design Management (DM) team, whose role is to take care of this. The DM team was set up about a decade ago, and all its team members are trained in architecture. As creative partners to CAG’s various business units, they support design projects by working closely with internal stakeholders and external parties such as architects and interior designers. 

Design at Changi Airport cuts across multiple teams and manifests in different forms, from experiential spaces to the selection of materials, integration of landscaping and more. Guided by the principles of ensuring a personalised, stress-free and positively surprising experience for all passengers, the DM team seeks to safeguard Changi’s aesthetics by bringing together design coherence across the terminals. 

The newly revamped T2 bus gates were inspired by an urban resort theme. 

Incorporating greenery is a large part of Changi’s design DNA, and the DM team works closely with CAG’s in-house horticulture team to create these green spaces – starting upfront from the conceptualisation stage, so as to ensure that nature is well integrated with the interior architecture, which also facilitates maintenance. 

Extending beyond the shores of Singapore, the Changi design DNA is also represented at overseas trade shows. Changi’s iconic Greenwall at Terminal 3, as well as the use of real plants, had all been key features in Changi’s exhibition booths. 

The iconic greenwall in Terminal 3

(left) The Airhub and Corporate & Marketing Communications teams taking a group photo in front of the greenwall at World Routes 2022, Las Vegas, (right) real plants are placed at strategic positions in he booth to improve ambience

Marrying form and function  

While Changi Airport generally adopts hospitality-style designs, given its unique combination of high footfall, diverse passenger profile and luggages being dragged around, the materials used in its designs are often limited by their properties such as durability, colour and stain resistance. 

Often having to strike a fine balance between function and aesthetics, every project is usually a collaboration between multiple stakeholders, each with their own requirements in terms of operational needs, commercial viability, maintenance access and more. The challenge is to achieve all these requirements without compromising the design intent. Capitalising on their domain knowledge, the DM team works with the project’s appointed designer to test out multiple options before converging. 

The future of Changi’s design

For the recent revamp of Terminal 2, the design shifted from one which incorporates nature, to one that is more nature-inspired – with spaces transformed to set functions in a garden, as well as including a more natural palette of colours, patterns and textures. 

In the newly revamped Terminal 2, F&B and waiting areas are all set in a garden setting to create a more relaxed atmosphere.

With many other design projects in the pipeline, Changi seeks to set a new benchmark in designing the Changi Experience of the future.