Singapore’s Changi Airport T5 will be a ‘mega-terminal’

Singapore’s sprawling Changi Airport is set to get bigger – much bigger – with an all-new Terminal 5 built on a site almost as large as the current airport itself.

“We are building one more new Changi Airport,” boasts outgoing Prime Minister Lee. “It’s huge (and) T5 will show the world what sort of place Singapore is.”

Located to the east of the current two runways and four terminals, T5 will abut a third runway previously used by the military and extended to 4km to handle modern commercial aircraft.

Construction is expected to start in 2024, with Terminal 5 scheduled to open in the mid-2030s.

The main Changi T5 terminal will be connected to the current terminals via a series of tunnels for easier airside connections and passenger transit; tunnels will also link the primary T5 to a pair of satellite terminals.

Drawing on lessons learned from the pandemic, those smaller sub-terminals can be isolated and converted during contingencies for use as virus testing operations or the segregation of high-risk passengers.

The complete T5 precinct will add over 100 departure gates to Changi and increase its annual passenger capacity from 90 million travellers to some 140 million passengers.

As the heart of a new Changi East development precinct, T5 will be flanked by an industrial zone and an “urban district” of apartments, shops and offices, which will share an MRT station with T5 at the end of the new Cross Island Line.

Terminal 5 is being jointly designed by global architecture firms KPF and Heatherwick Studio, which envisage the terminal as a series of neighbourhoods – “an intuitive extension of Singapore itself” – delivered as “a series of human-scale social spaces” while also embracing both the city-state’s lush natural landscape and modern urban vibe.

“Our intention is to redefine what an airport terminal can be,” offers designer Thomas Heatherwick.

“Most airports aren’t great places to spend time but Changi has always been different. Rather than making a single vast monolith on the outskirts of a city for the exclusive use of travelers, our plan is to create a social space that people living in the city are excited to visit.”

While too early to predict which airlines will move to Terminal 5, and how this will reshape use of T1 through to T4, it’s difficult to imagine T5 won’t become a new home to flag-carrier Singapore Airlines, and could indeed serve as Changi’s de facto Star Alliance terminal.