Exploring Evolving Programs in Architecture: A Detailed Analysis and Design for Future Proofing Singapore's Changi Airport

Abstract

Architecture and technology have a constrained relationship in part to their diverging principal-qualities (permanence vs speed, respectively). Buildings, while often designed with technical integration in mind, are rarely designed to take advantage of or to anticipate future trends or technologies. This misappropriation of technological progress in architecture materializes in form of retrofits, additions, and expansions – a chase in which architecture lags behind technology and its resulting and profound influence on culture and behavior. Architectural design and building programs may benefit from a deeper consideration and anticipation of evolving technological elements early in the design process. There may be no better building typology to understand past, present, and future design approaches than airports and their sequentially constructed terminals – true case studies of design thought and influences in contained and chronological configuration; snapshots of architectural and technological dependencies. This dissertation examines the past, current and proposed terminal designs at Singapore’s Changi Airport in order to understand the influences, technological contribution, and passenger experience goals throughout the terminal design process. The dissertation concludes with an alternative design to the currently proposed Terminal 5 design and aims to conceptually unify and prepare each current terminal for additional terminals as the airport expands.