TYPOLOGY (RE) PRESENTED : AN ANALYSIS OF CHANGI AIRPORT

Abstract

Typology in architecture is most commonly represented in two distinct manifestations – formally and functionally. Employed as an instrument of representation, the ‘types’ in typology categorizes and forges preconceived static images that influence how one discerns architecture. These conventional representations have endured and inhibit an extended knowledge in the discourse. Nonetheless, with the increasing hybridization of spaces and supersession of architectural concepts, the notion of typology transforms into one that no longer conforms to a singular discourse.

Contemporary airport typology today, satisfy exceedingly more than its functional prerequisites and has further served as a driver for many political, economical, and social essentialities. As air travel has become affordable and easily accessible, the system of air travel has developed into a convoluted phenomenon. It results in airports transforming into complex, yet sterile structures. Singapore’s Changi International Airport, however, reflects images that defy the understandings of normative contemporary airport typology. It embodies attributes that challenge the limitations of the represented ‘typology’ in architecture. As such, this paper entails utilizing Changi Airport as a vehicle to reconsider typological representations.

This dissertation seeks to examine the potentiality of reconsidering ‘typology’ as a purely ‘formal’ or ‘functional’ representation. This proposition attempts to question the relevance and redefine the representations of ‘typology’, through the manifestation of Changi Airport’s transcended typological ideas. ‘Typology’ as a representation of architecture may be inadequate, as evolving architecture can be discussed within other discourses. This project seeks to demonstrate that, ‘typology’ as an architectural representation requires reconsideration.