Biophilic design is the concept of bringing nature and greenery to the built environment. According to US press reports, biophilic design is becoming increasingly widespread, with aspects of it adopted in the offices of Google, Amazon.com and Facebook, and in leading hotel brands such as Starwood.
SINGAPORE (Apr 22): Jewel Changi Airport — Singapore’s newest integrated development by CapitaLand and Changi Airport — is quite the talk of the town with its waterfall, jungle, shops, eateries and a YOTELAIR. It houses more than 2,000 trees and palms and over 100,000 shrubs. These plants comprise about 120 species and originate from countries such as Australia, China, Malaysia, Spain, Thailand and the US. There are two 100-year-old olive trees on Level 5. CapitaLand’s real estate investment trust (REIT) CapitaLand Commercial Trust’s CapitaGreen, a commercial office building in Raffles Place, also has a lush jungle that boasts a 100-year-old olive tree.
In an interview in February, CapitaLand group CEO Lee Chee Koon said Jewel brings the biophilic concept to Singapore. “If you [look at] human history, we spent a large part of our time on the farm [in the countryside], so people like to go hiking. Bringing greenery, like a miniature forest… tends to give a certain calmness.”
