Changi International Airport – Rail Terminal

Client Land Transport Authority
Expertise Airports, Transportation
Location Changi, Singapore

The rail terminal at Singapore's global transportation hub offers a seamless connection from plane to train with an inspiring, light-filled structure.

Project Facts

Completion Year 2001
Design Finish Year 1997
Size Building Height: 16 meters Number of Stories: 2 Building Gross Area: 25,084 square meters
Transit Mode Bus, Subway
Collaborators

Land Transport Authority, Public Works Department, Caas Arup - New York Susan Brady Lighting Meinhardt Facade Technology YKK Architectural Products Singapore Yongnam Mero Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. Paa Architects Kumagai Sembcorp Joint Venture

Project Facts

Completion Year 2001
Design Finish Year 1997
Size Building Height: 16 meters Number of Stories: 2 Building Gross Area: 25,084 square meters
Transit Mode Bus, Subway
Collaborators

Land Transport Authority, Public Works Department, Caas Arup - New York Susan Brady Lighting Meinhardt Facade Technology YKK Architectural Products Singapore Yongnam Mero Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. Paa Architects Kumagai Sembcorp Joint Venture

Connecting to the city, and the world

Changi International Airport is a key transportation hub in Southeast Asia and one of the busiest passenger and cargo airports in the world. With Singapore’s emergence as a key global transportation hub, city and airport officials recognized the need for a new intermodal transit link to the airport in the 1990s. Since the airport opened in 1981, it had relied only on taxi and bus connections. The Changi Airport Rail Terminal, which was completed in 2001, connects passengers to an extended subway line and provides an underground pedestrian concourse that links two of the airport’s three terminals.

A soaring, open rail hall

The centerpiece of the 2,500-square-meter station is an illuminated bridge that stretches the entire length of the concourse and is one of the world’s longest clear-span bridges. A steel superstructure supports its translucent glass floor. Two 40-meter-high atriums, enclosed by cable-supported glass walls, anchor the station at each end, ushering in daylight and allowing travelers to view the tropical landscape in the airport’s public space.

The train platforms are free of columns, as the bridge carries most of the structural load. The platform and track vault are made of poured-in-place concrete, and the interior is clad in noise-reducing metal acoustical panels.