Tour 1
Sponsored by
Site 1. Nanyang Technological University NTU - Learning Hub (The Hive)
Open for classes in August 2105, The Hive at NTU represents the most recent example of NTU’s transformation of the built environment in terms of student learning. Since 2010, NTU has converted all its front-facing tutorial rooms to collaborative, technology-rich learning spaces. The classrooms at The Hive draw on the model of these converted rooms, but overall, the building adds a number of new features. Importantly, The Hive is open 24/7. Students can use the classrooms at any time they are available by using their access cards. Furthermore, The Hive was built so that no two classrooms are joined together and there are informal learning spaces between each of the rooms and around the atrium areas. Integrating formal and informal learning spaces has been a key to The Hive. It also contains a Library Outpost, Language and Communications drop-in centre, a small lecture theatre and a student run café and shop. The Hive is spectacular in its appearance as well as providing more than 50 new innovative classrooms.
Site 2. School of Art, Design and Media, NTU, Singapore
Over the last 10 years, Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) has established itself as one of Singapore’s most creative centres of tertiary education. Underneath the building’s distinctive, sloping grass roof you will discover five floors of highly equipped classrooms, auditoriums, studios, darkrooms and digital media labs where those who are curious and passionate about the arts can explore, play, learn and create. The school sits in a wooded valley which was supposed to be left as a green lung. In order to keep to the original intention of the master plan, a habitat was carved out from the constraints of the valley and thus allowing the landscape to mould the building. NTU-ADM is the creation of a “non-building”, allowing the original greenery of the site to creep and colonise.
The key feature of the building is its transparency and connectivity - both within the interior spaces and the external environment. There is a great sense of continuity in the interior, from the entrance to the main foyer to various spaces inside and right into the turfed roofs. Internal glass walls enhance this visual connectivity and flow, allowing one to see beyond rooms thus promoting interaction and creative exchange. The building design challenges the traditional linear system of education with a clear teacher-student arrangement. Here, different types of spaces are created - from the formal auditorium seating to the more informal studios, lobbies, passageways and breakout lounges. Cosy outdoor corners and a sunken plaza is formed by the embracing arms of the building and the turfed roofs.
Tour 2
Leading the charge towards environmental sustainability, UTown was the first educational institution to be awarded the Green Mark District GoldPLUS Certification in Oct 2009. Specially built around existing trees, the Education Resource Centre was awarded the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore’s Green Mark Platinum. Similarly, the Stephen Riady Centre was awarded the Green Mark Platinum, the UTown Residence received the Green Mark Gold Plus while the first two residential colleges, Cinnamon College (USP) and Tembusu College, were awarded the Green Mark Gold. The Yale-NUS College Campus is designed with a unique architecture that reflects the traditions of Singapore and Yale University. Adapting New Haven's low-rise student residences to Singapore's high rise tropical environment, the development achieves high density with low rise environment with a sense of place that reflects the campus’ Singaporean context, climate and culture. The campus features a series of interlocking courtyards of varying sizes, each resembling closely the collegiate courtyards in New Haven. The landscape is organised around the concept of an arboretum (or “learning garden”) where each courtyards is grouped according to themes such as ecological, historical and cultural. The campus is planned with human scale and the need to create a sense of community and intimacy. The nested communities from the student suites, student neighbourhood, to the college, to the entire campus community layered themselves on campus architecture at different scales.
National University of Singapore (NUS) University Town®, or UTown® for short, is a 19 hectare mixed-use residential, sports, educational and research where undergraduate and graduate students, staff and researchers work, live, learn and play, nestled within a lush tropical landscape. Strategically integrated with the Kent Ridge Campus via a vehicle and pedestrian bridge, UTown has created a lively intellectual, social and cultural environment that distinguishes the University through excellence in learning and student engagement.
Site 1. National University of Singapore (NUS)
University Town (Utown)
Site 2. Yale - NUS College Campus
The Yale-NUS College Campus is the first liberal art college in Singapore involving collaboration of National University of Singapore and Yale University. Sprawling over a 4.6ha undulating site, the campus is planned as interlocking courtyards around the Campus Green centred on 6 heritage trees. 5 residential dormitories towers of different heights (varying from 15 to 28 storeys) punctuate the roof scape to form a distinctive skyline.
