Patrick Comerford
I had thought of travelling to Singapore and Kuching last weekend with Charlotte. Circumstances changed, however, and I am in Stony Stratford. She is in the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on a family visit, and I am sorry to have missed the opportunity to see one of the great architectural works by Moshe Safdie, one of the world's greatest living architects.
Marina Bay Sands is an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay and a landmark of Singapore. When it opened in 2010, it was said to be the world’s most expensive standalone casino property.
The resort includes a 1,850-room hotel, a 120,000 sq m facility for meetings and conventions at Sands Expo & Convention Centre, a 74,000 sq m luxury shopping mall, The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, an ArtScience museum, a 2,183-seat theatre, the world's first floating Apple store, the world’s first Louis Vuitton Island Maison, celebrity chef and signature restaurants, and a casino with 500 tables and 3,000 electronic gaming machines.
The complex includes three towers topped by the Sands Skypark, a 340 metre skyway connecting the towers with a capacity of 3,902 people and a 150 metre infinity swimming pool, set on top of the world’s largest public cantilevered platform that overhangs the north tower by 66.5 metres.
The 20 ha resort was designed by Moshe Safdie, an Israeli-Canadian-American architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author. He is known for incorporating principles of socially responsible design throughout his career. His projects include cultural, educational and civic institutions such as neighbourhoods and public parks, housing, mixed-use urban centres, and airports.
Moshe Safdie is most identified with designing both Marina Bay Sands and Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore. His debut project, Habitat 67 in Montreal, was originally conceived as his thesis at McGill University.
Sadie, who is a citizen of Israel, Canada and the US, was born in Haifa on 14 July 1938 to a family of Syrian Jews: his father was from Aleppo, and his mother, whose family originated in Aleppo, was from Manchester. When he was 15, his family emigrated to Montreal in Canada, where he studied architecture at McGill University.
His projects include: Habitat 67 at Expo 67 World’s Fair, Montreal (1967); the Class of 1959 Chapel, Harvard Business School, Boston (1992); Yad Vashem Children’s and Deportees Memorials, Jerusalem (1995); Vancouver Library Square (1995); David Citadel Hotel and David’s Village, Jerusalem (1998); Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (1998); Yitzhak Rabin Centre, Tel Aviv (1999); Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv (2004); Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum (2005); Toronto Pearson International Airport (2007); Jewel Changi Airport, Singapore (2019); and Raffles City, Chongqing, China (2020).
Marina Bay Sands is one of two winning proposals for Singapore’s first integrated resorts, the other being the Resorts World Sentosa.
Las Vegas Sands described the undertaking as ‘one of the world’s most challenging construction projects and certainly the most expensive stand-alone integrated resort property ever built’. It expected the casino to generate at least $1 billion in annual profits. Two months after the initial phased opening, the casino was attracting around 25,000 visitors a day, about a third being Singaporeans and permanent residents who paid a $150 daily entry levy or $3,000 for annual unlimited access.
For the economy, Marina Bay Sands was projected to stimulate an addition of $2.7 billion or 0.8% to Singapore’s GDP by 2015, employing 10,000 people directly and creating 20,000 jobs in other industries.
Sands announced a $3.3 billion expansion of its Marina Bay Sands property in Singapore on 3 April 2019. The expansion will include the construction of a fourth hotel tower with 1,000 luxury suites and a 15,000-seat arena.
When we were looking at the Marina Bay Sands at night last year from the Padang or Singapore Cricket Club Ground last year, Charlotte and I wondered whether its design was inspired by a cricket wicket, with the Sands SkyPark imitating the bails on top of the three stumps.
But Moshe Safdie says his design was initially inspired by card decks. The prominent feature of the design is the three hotel towers, which have 1,850 rooms and suites, and a continuous lobby at the base linking the three towers. The casino has a four-storey central atrium with four levels of gaming and entertainment in one space.
In addition to the hotel and the casino, other buildings include a 19,000 sq m ArtScience Museum, and Sands Expo & Convention Centre with 110,000 sq m of space, capable of accommodating up to 45,000 people. The resort’s architecture and major design changes along the way were also approved by its feng shui consultants, the late Chong Swan Lek and Louisa Ong-Lee.
The three towers are broader at the base and narrow as they rise. Each tower has two asymmetric legs, with a curved eastern leg leaning against the other, creating a significant technical challenge in its construction. Substantial temporary structures were necessary to support the legs of the tower while they were under construction, and required real-time monitoring for continual assessment and analyses while they were being built.
A distinctive feature of the hotel is Sands SkyPark, a 1.2 ha tropical oasis that is longer than the Eiffel Tower and extends to form one of the world’s longest public cantilevers. It was built at the height of 200 m, the structure offers 12,400 sq m of space – big enough to fit three football fields – and bridges all three towers with a segment cantilevered off the north tower.
The hull of the SkyPark was prefabricated off-site in 14 separate steel sections and then assembled on top of the towers. There are four movement joints beneath the main pools, designed to help them withstand the natural motion of the towers, and each joint has a unique range of motion. The total range of motion is 500 mm. In addition to wind, the hotel towers are also subject to settlement in the earth over time, so engineers built and installed custom jack legs to allow for future adjustment at more than 500 points beneath the pool system. This jacking system is important primarily to ensure the infinity edge of the pool continues to function properly.
The Rain Oculus above the shopping mall canal was designed by Ned Kahn, the California-based environmental artist and sculptor.
Marina Bay Sands was originally planned to be completed in a single phase in 2009, but rising costs and the 2008 financial crisis forced the company to open it in phases. The first phase’s soft opening was further delayed until 27 April 2010, and the official opening was pushed back to 23 June 2010. The rest of the complex remained under construction and was opened after a grand opening on 17 February 2011.
Marina Bay Sands had the first of a planned three to four phase openings on 27 April 2010. The casino, parts of the conference hall, a segment of the Shoppes, 963 hotel rooms and the event plaza were opened at the auspicious time of 3:18 pm as part of the ‘preview opening’.
The Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA) held the first conference at Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre on 2-5 May 2010, but the event was marred by uncompleted facilities and a power failure during a speech.
The resort had its official opening with a two-day celebration on 23 June 2010. This included the Sands SkyPark, the Event Plaza along Marina Bay, more shops, additional dining options and nightlife events, and the rest of the hotel rooms.
First day events included a ‘World Championship Climb’ on the glass façade of the building to the SkyPark, with seven teams of 21 top rock climbers from around the world competing, and an evening concert for 4,000 invited guests and customers. The SkyPark was opened on the second day, with about 2,000 adult tickets costing S$20 each.
Sands Theatre was completed in time for a performance of the Riverdance on 30 November 2010.
ArtScience Museum opened its doors to the public on 19 February 2011. The musical The Lion King made its debut on 3 March 2011. The floating pavilions were opened when the tenants Louis Vuitton and Pangaea Club finished their refurbishment and opened on 18 September 2011 and 22 September 2011.
Marina Bay Sands is expanding their property with a new development set to be complete by 2031, at an estimated cost of S$10.3 billion (US$8 billion). Plans for the standalone fourth tower was announced in 2019, and will feature 570 luxury suites, 10,220 sq m of MICE space, its own SkyPark, and a 15,000 capacity arena. In addition, all the hotel rooms in the existing structure have been renovated this year.
Marina Bay Sands has three 55-storey hotel towers which were topped out in July 2009. The three towers are connected by a 1.2 hectare rooftop cantilever, Sands SkyPark. The Skypark observation deck provides panoramic views across the bay.
The ArtScience Museum is built next to the three blocks and has the shape of a lotus, composed of 21 gallery spaces with a total floor area of about 5,000 sqm. The building is composed of 10 ‘fingers’, with the tallest standing 60 metres above ground. Its roof is retractable, providing a waterfall through the roof of collected rainwater when closed in the day and laser shows when opened at night.
The SkyPark has the world’s longest elevated swimming pool, with a 146-metre infinity pool 191 metres above ground. The pools are made up of 191,000 kg of stainless steel and can hold 1,425 cubic metres of water.
A canal runs through the length of the Shoppes, in the same style as the Venetian in Las Vegas, and Sampan rides on the canal are available for guests and shoppers, similar to the gondola rides offered in the Venetian in Las Vegas.
Perhaps I’ll get back to Kuching next year, with an opportunity to stop over in Singapore again and to see Marina Bay Sands.
Five minutes at the Jewel, Changi Airport, Singapore (Patrick Comerford)
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