This steel and glass structure weighs 3,500 tonnes and rises 10 stories above the ground. it's the equivalent to a third of the Eiffel Tower suspended 40m in the air. The fact that it doesn't collapse under its own weight is quite frankly an engineering miracle.
And if all of that wasn't enough, pouring through the center is the tallest indoor waterfall in the world. 37,000L of water come through this Oculus every single minute. That's an entire Olympic pool every hour.
Inside there are more than 3,000 trees and 60,000 plants from all over the world. But perhaps the most amazing thing about all of this is that it isn't a greenhouse or an oasis or some futuristic Eden Project. This is an airport.
But since you're a fan of The B1M you probably already knew that. This is Changi in Singapore ,one of the most famous and beautiful airports on the planet. This structure alone known as the jewel cost 1.
3 billion nearly as much as the world's tallest building. And we haven't even got to the runways yet. Tt's fulfilling a vision that dates all the way back to the 1960s and the story of its construction defies ambition, cost, and gravity.
This is how one of the world's greatest airports was built. In 1967 the first prime minister of Singapore announced his vision for the country. He called it the Garden City.
He believed he could make Singapore one of the greatest cities in the world and that demand for excellence extended to the city's airport. To talk about Changi airport as we know it today we have to talk about another visionary: Moshe Safdie. He's the architect behind the jewel.
This is a guy who sees the fundamentals of gravity and says "thanks but that's not for me". You can see this from his early work in Montreal that made him a Starchitect, to the Altair building in Sri Lanka and over at Raffles City in Chongqing, China. But perhaps his most famous and impactful work can be found on the skyline of Singapore.
This is Marina Bay Sands. In 2010 the complex opened to the public as the most expensive skyscraper ever built. The towers quickly became critical darlings in the architectural worlds.
And Singapore got an icon and a focal point for the city. This was their Opera House ,their St Paul's Cathedral, their Empire State Building. And like Safdie's best work these towers too defied gravity.
Each of the towers were made of two smaller towers that were essentially leaning against each other like a pair of playing cards. Then on top they held up an enormous 1. 2 hectare Sky Park, the world's longest public cantilever.
This balancing act had to accommodate for each of the towers moving slightly in the wind and settling over time, something that all buildings do. It was and continues to be an engineering marvel. Even if you're not running international airport managing any business is hard.
It might feel like there's simply not enough hours in the day to keep track of all the moving parts. But when you're being pulled in different directions today's video sponsor Oodo can help make things simple. Instead of juggling endless apps that all work in isolation, Oodo's all-in-one management software is quick and intuitive which means you can manage all of your subscriptions within one simple platform.
But if you're still not convinced Oodo lets you use your first app for free for life, which is a lot cheaper than the price tag for the jewel. Making a website with Oodo couldn't be any easier, it's just four simple steps. First you define your goals then you choose a color palette, add your pages and features, and then choose a theme.
The drag and drop feature makes it super easy to add each element exactly where you want it, giving you complete freedom in designing your site. When you add a new section Oodo even lets you pick a template that matches your needs perfectly. Each category block is customizable so you can go as detailed as you like, and there you go!
Faster than it takes to board a plane you have a professional website ready to go. From there it's easy to customize with options to tweak text colors and even highlights important sections that matter most to you. You also get access to a huge range of images through unsplash and you can style them with fixed or animated shapes.
With chatGPT built in, you get text generation whenever you need it. And if you're running a multilingual site Oodo's AI can translate your text in seconds. And for the first year Oodo will even give you a free custom domain.
Try Oodo for free, click the link in the description and get started today. Now let's get back to Changi Airport. In many ways these buildings set up Singapore as a city that takes architectural risks a city that's Innovative and daring Singapore now had a Skyline that matched its status as a global City the country's economy was growing to and its airport needed to keep Pace Terminal 1 the original terminal needed to be expanded to meet record passenger numbers and Changi approached safy to create a new Gateway for the city that would match the towers he just built safy had a radical thought what if the airport itself could be a destination so often an airport is thought of as a non place a transitory area that you used to get from point A to point B but not really a place in its own right he wanted to combine two environments an intense Marketplace and a Paradise Garden he wanted to create an oasis a Garden City the officials at Changi loved this idea at this point the airport was welcoming more than 40 million annual passengers but most of those were Transit passengers and only a third of them would actually leave the airport and go and visit the city Changi wanted to encourage more people to choose Singapore not only to Transit through but to stop and visit as well and to do that they needed a new attraction and so saf's Jewel was born this is where it was to be constructed and you might notice a problem there's something already here well two things actually safy wanted the jewel to be constructed where the sky Train and control tower were already sitting the train would have gone directly through where the waterfall was supposed to be and that obviously couldn't happen Singapore was daring but not that daring the solution was to push the waterfall slightly off center so that it wouldn't be directly in the middle helping the train but creating a geometric and Engineering nightmare placing the hole off center like this creates all sorts of engineering problems on top of the logistical challenge of the entire structure being toid shaped you see safy didn't want the jewel to be just another Dome that had already been done he wanted it to be the inverse of a Dome like a toid or a donut something that would be special his design would accumulate with the structure pucking inwards not outwards to pull this off and ensure the structure wouldn't collapse under its own weight his team of Architects had to work very closely with Engineers from Bureau hault and this is how they kept the building upright first off the structure has two phases a shell phase the part of the building that is a dome and then the tension face the part that comes inward to form a waterfall the shell has a perimeter support that goes all the way along the edge of the building at level five then you have 14 sets of columns that are inset from that perimeter the area from the perimeter to the columns is supported in the same way that a dome would be but from the columns to the waterfall there's nothing this part of the structure is held up by tension it's called a tension cone and it's being supported by a compression ring that's created by the 14 columns once the models and the engineering was all worked out it was of course then very important to choose the right materials to make the Dome and the tension cone high strength steel and tempered glass were chosen for their durability and resistance to environmental stress the steel could bear significant loads while the glass panels were designed to withstand wind forces and other external pressures this special laminated glass was used for the roof to prevent shattering even in extreme weather it was within the framework of these glass panels that pipes were hidden to carry water up to the Oculus water would then pour out into the Vortex and into the basement five stories under the airport you see if the water stopped on the main floor of the jewel it would Splash up and flood the area instead water falls down into the basement and is then pumped around the building and back up to the roof the jewel is even equipped with sensors so that when it rains which it does quite a lot in tropical Singapore the pipes shut off and moderate how much water flows into the Vortex this structure took 5 years to build and it was done right in the heart of the Changi Airport Aerodrome all without disrupting vital operations once it was completed they began filling the interior with that Greenery a whopping 3,000 trees and 60,000 shrubs now creating an environment where both people and plants can Thrive at the same time is a whole other challenge they'd essentially built a gigantic Greenhouse here which is great for plants but can be uncomfortable for visitors to combat this pipes filled with chilled water were built into the floor and air conditioning vents were hidden under benches when the jeel first opened in 2019 it was expected that the airport would see 40 to 50 million visitors in its first year but it got more than 50 million in its first 6 months this Oasis cemented Changi Airport as a destination in its own right and fulfilled Leong Yu's vision of a Garden City today this airport is only expanding as it looks to the Future this is Changi right now and this is where the new Terminal 5 will be it'll add an incredible 1,080 hectares of reclaimed land and have space for an additional 50 million passengers each year it'll be larger than all of the airport's previous terminals combined it's a vast new project that will cost $10 billion and begin Construction in the second half of 2025 for Singapore the sky really is the limit this video was sponsored by UD do you can learn more about that at the link below don't forget that we're raising awareness of construction's Mental Health crisis and supporting charities in this space through our get construction talking initiative there's a video series on our Channel and you can find support or donate over at get Construction talk.
org And as always guys if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction make sure you subscribe to The B1M.
