Nature’s Embrace

In 2023, Terminal 2 of Changi International Airport in Singapore underwent a renovation and extension project, aimed at increasing the capacity of existing terminals and improving building efficiency – while enhancing the airport experience for passengers.

Basile Boiffils, Managing Director and Principal Architect at Boiffils Architecture, the firm selected to manage the project, says: “When we participated in the competition in 2018, we had never worked in the transportation sector before. For us, it was an advantage: we could unleash our creativity without barriers, as we were not constrained by prior knowledge of the subject. We had the opportunity to work with top professionals from everywhere in the world – from Canada to Japan; they brought their wealth of experience, enabling us to bring to life everything we had imagined. It truly was a collaborative effort."

The project's conception is linked to the essence of the city-state of Singapore, which defines itself as "the green city”. In order to provide Singapore with a new gateway that evokes the 21st-century garden city, the designers have transformed a natural environment into an authentic entrance through a garden.

"Our idea was to make the airport experience much more human. Through our work, we are constantly traveling, constantly taking flights, and often, it's anything but enjoyable due to all the procedures required to board. Contact with nature makes things more pleasant, and that's why we tried to blur the boundaries between architecture and landscape, recreating the experience of a garden in indoor spaces," says Boiffils.

This concept, which permeates throughout the project, was developed with the help of professionals and companies from around the world, and achieved Singapore's highest ecological rating, the Green Mark Gold.

The work on vegetation and landscape, carried out in collaboration with Patrick Blanc, the inventor of the vertical garden, focused on a central location within the transit area. The idea was to create a large fishpond, topped with an acrylic platform that gives the impression of walking on water, and from which vegetated rocks emerge, creating vertical volumes. To provide more comfort to passengers in transit, reduce their sense of disorientation, and establish a connection with the outside, the designers worked with Moment Factory and installed a projection screen on the ceiling, displaying real-time sky imagery based on weather parameters.

The project team also focused on the choice of materials and colors: while the various spaces all have different shapes, they are all made of natural and artisanal materials and are available in a palette of five-six colors resembling the mineral tones of nature and blending well with the vegetation. The space was made more pleasant also by reducing the amount of lighting and the number of screens, eliminating the impression of visual cacophony.

Finally, with facial recognition technologies reducing waiting times at each stage and thus streamlining circulation, the team was able to redefine surfaces, open them up, and design curved lines and organic forms, contrary to the usual trend of favoring a more linear design. The result is the creation of a more transparent and readable space, allowing visual porosity between different areas and improving the transit experience for travelers, while reducing stress.

"Usually, when you enter an airport, you are immediately exposed to a fairly high level of noise. I believe the way we designed the space contributed to creating a quiet space and making people more serene in their approach to travel within this terminal, which is felt as soon as you enter this terminal where the ambient noise is significantly lower than in other airports”, explains architect Boiffils.

"We were looking for furniture inspired by organic shapes that would integrate well into this project; we found that Arper products perfectly met our requirements while communicating effectively with one another," continues architect Boiffils.

"The Colina armchair seemed perfectly suited to our needs, thanks to its organic yet structured forms. We immediately thought it would integrate very well into the project."

The idea was to offer a comfortable experience, closer to the hospitality world than to that of an airport. The choice fell on the Kiik modular benches: while fulfilling the functions of an airport seating chair, their pleasant aesthetic has a residential feeling, bringing a sense of warmth and comfort thanks to the padded cushion.

"We were also looking for elements that could resemble pebbles scattered in space, somewhat like a Japanese garden strewn with stones: thanks to the Pix collection of poufs and their organic shapes, we found an excellent solution to this idea of space fluidity”.