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NTU to transform under 15-year plan
Campus will become 'mini city' rich in biodiversity and interactivity
By LINETTE LIM
BY 2025, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will be transformed into an eco-friendly 'mini city' rich in biodiversity and multi-disciplinary collaboration.
Speaking to the media yesterday, NTU president Su Guaning described the new masterplan for the Yunnan Garden campus as the university's most ambitious physical development initiative to date.
The funding for the masterplan is expected to come from the government, university funds, donations and loans.
While not going into the exact cost for the 15-year masterplan, NTU president-designate and provost Bertil Andersson said that it could be around $500 million.
NTU said last November that its 2015 five-year strategic blueprint will cost $50 million to $100 million to implement.
Not content with being one of the greenest campuses in Singapore, NTU wants to re-introduce plants and trees native to the region to its campus.
Ponds and waterways will replace 'ugly concrete channels', said chief masterplan consultant Harold Guida. These new water bodies will enable NTU to re-use the rain water for irrigation purposes.
Eventually, it is envisaged that all the water bodies will form a continuous swathe of blue across the campus to complement the greenery.
Mr Guida - a partner at Guida Moseley Brown Architects - added that one of the aims of the masterplan is to integrate the buildings and the inhabitants with the natural environment.
This will be done through 'covered walkways and cycling lanes, to encourage people to walk or ride eco-friendly bicycles', as well as pavilions and decks that can act as outdoor classrooms.
Besides eco-friendly bicycles, there may be new forms of transport that will increase accessibility to, as well as within, the campus.
The completion of the adjacent CleanTech Park in 2012 - a 50-hectare eco-business facility developed by JTC Corporation - may provide the critical mass for a light rail transport system, said Prof Andersson.
Betting on the trend of inter-disciplinarity, the campus will also be modified to boost interactivity and multi-disciplinary collaborations.
This will be achieved through the provision of more common spaces, such as a learning hub, an inter-disciplinary research building and a new Campus Centre, which will have facilities such as restaurants, cafes, pubs and a cinema.
'Such common spaces will help to break down psychological 'glass walls', and encourage people of different research interests and disciplines to get to know one another better,' said Prof Andersson.
Besides facilitating the cross fertilisation of ideas through unexpected connections, Prof Su expressed hopes that the common spaces will be conducive for students to 'pak tor' (Hokkien for going on romantic dates).
With some 33,000 students and 3,000 faculty and researchers in NTU, Prof Andersson said that he felt like a mayor of a 'mini city'.
Apart from new buildings, some 5,000 new hostel places will be added by 2015, allowing every undergraduate who desires to stay on campus to be able to do so.
Masterplanning for the 'mini city' took a period of two years, during which the NTU campus planning committee and Mr Guida's team extensively consulted students, faculty, alumni, neighbours and the authorities.
Campus will become 'mini city' rich in biodiversity and interactivity
By LINETTE LIM
BY 2025, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will be transformed into an eco-friendly 'mini city' rich in biodiversity and multi-disciplinary collaboration.
Speaking to the media yesterday, NTU president Su Guaning described the new masterplan for the Yunnan Garden campus as the university's most ambitious physical development initiative to date.
The funding for the masterplan is expected to come from the government, university funds, donations and loans.
While not going into the exact cost for the 15-year masterplan, NTU president-designate and provost Bertil Andersson said that it could be around $500 million.
NTU said last November that its 2015 five-year strategic blueprint will cost $50 million to $100 million to implement.
Not content with being one of the greenest campuses in Singapore, NTU wants to re-introduce plants and trees native to the region to its campus.
Ponds and waterways will replace 'ugly concrete channels', said chief masterplan consultant Harold Guida. These new water bodies will enable NTU to re-use the rain water for irrigation purposes.
Eventually, it is envisaged that all the water bodies will form a continuous swathe of blue across the campus to complement the greenery.
Mr Guida - a partner at Guida Moseley Brown Architects - added that one of the aims of the masterplan is to integrate the buildings and the inhabitants with the natural environment.
This will be done through 'covered walkways and cycling lanes, to encourage people to walk or ride eco-friendly bicycles', as well as pavilions and decks that can act as outdoor classrooms.
Besides eco-friendly bicycles, there may be new forms of transport that will increase accessibility to, as well as within, the campus.
The completion of the adjacent CleanTech Park in 2012 - a 50-hectare eco-business facility developed by JTC Corporation - may provide the critical mass for a light rail transport system, said Prof Andersson.
Betting on the trend of inter-disciplinarity, the campus will also be modified to boost interactivity and multi-disciplinary collaborations.
This will be achieved through the provision of more common spaces, such as a learning hub, an inter-disciplinary research building and a new Campus Centre, which will have facilities such as restaurants, cafes, pubs and a cinema.
'Such common spaces will help to break down psychological 'glass walls', and encourage people of different research interests and disciplines to get to know one another better,' said Prof Andersson.
Besides facilitating the cross fertilisation of ideas through unexpected connections, Prof Su expressed hopes that the common spaces will be conducive for students to 'pak tor' (Hokkien for going on romantic dates).
With some 33,000 students and 3,000 faculty and researchers in NTU, Prof Andersson said that he felt like a mayor of a 'mini city'.
Apart from new buildings, some 5,000 new hostel places will be added by 2015, allowing every undergraduate who desires to stay on campus to be able to do so.
Masterplanning for the 'mini city' took a period of two years, during which the NTU campus planning committee and Mr Guida's team extensively consulted students, faculty, alumni, neighbours and the authorities.
