Fentress Architects announced the winners of the 2019 Fentress Global Challenge, the international annual student competition. For this 7th edition, under the theme of envisioning the airport of the future in the year 2075, students from more than 50 countries participated in the contest, and more than 500 applications were registered.
Airport architecture is a complex typology in which to innovate. Restrictive technical, security, and circulatory requirements force designs along limited (and precedented) paths; little budget is left over to create space for respite, let alone beauty.
Which makes the central space of Safdie Architect's design for Singapore's Changi Airport all the more unusual. Jewel Changi Airport reinvents the public concourse not just as an in-between space for travelers, but as a major public attraction. Public transit form the city passes through the city and the large garden and shopping space within the central dome establishes it as a node for public gathering. In the future, an event space on the north side of the park will host public events for up to 1000 people.