The need to provide students with the best possible education to ensure a better future for them has become a driving force in society. How are we expected to improve and expand the world if we cannot do the same for our own minds? Education has evolved into more than the lessons and assignments given in the classroom, instead, it can be seen as a way of experiencing the world and communicating with it in order to broaden our horizons. If all we needed to learn was a teacher and a book then we would not see such a vast array of architecture dedicated to providing the best possible learning environment.
The Singapore University of Technology and Design is a proposal by UNStudio in collaboration with DP Architects. SUTD is expected to be Singapore’s fourth and most prestigious university offering four main academic pillars including Architecture and Sustainable Design, Engineering Product Development, Engineering Systems and Design, and Information Systems Technology and Design. The driving force behind the proposal was to design a campus that reflects the university’s curriculum. By doing so the creative enterprise of the school will begin to facilitate a cross-disciplinary interface allowing for interaction between the professional world, the campus, and the community.
Photography By© UNStudio
The design is organized around two main axes consisting of living and learning spines that overlap creating a central point on the campus. This relationship emphasizes the idea of binding all the corners and aspects of SUTD together and form a larger network. The network of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal vistas occupies a double quadrant organization plan where thoroughfares allow seamless connectivity. Again the importance of interaction and exchange is made evident through the many opportunities to do so provided by crossing paths and transparent layering of space.
What this campus does well is pursuing the idea of education as more than an academic level of study, but a social experience. We’ve become used to the notion that being self-sufficient and independent makes us smarter because we are able to find our own answers to our own problems, thus eliminating the social aspect of learning. Anyone can be told to memorize the contents of a book but to really learn something one has to be able to ask the right questions too and have that curiosity to understand more than what is given. More details from architect below :
Designed by UNStudio and DP Architects, the academic campus for the Singapore University of Technology and Design reflects an in-depth understanding of the changing requirements of learning institutions today. Connectivity, collaboration, co-creation, innovation and sociality are at the basis of UNStudio’s design thinking on New Campuses.
Photography By© UNStudio
The SUTD offers four key academic pillars: Architecture and Sustainable Design, Engineering Product Development , Engineering Systems and Design and Information Systems Technology and Design. The SUTD is a driver of technological innovation and economic growth, with the new campus bringing together people, ideas and innovation.
The new academic campus directly reflects SUTD’s curriculum, using the creative enterprise of the school to facilitate a cross-disciplinary interface. The design offers an opportunity to embrace innovation and creativity through a non-linear connective relationship between students, faculty and professionals.
Following the master plan, the academic campus is designed through two main axes: the living and learning spines, which overlap to create a central point and bind together all corners of the campus.
Photography By© UNStudio
At the center of this node, UNStudio proposed a flexible space for exhibitions, events and interaction: this Campus Centre forms the intellectual heart of the campus and directly links the main programmatic anchors of the Auditorium, the International Design Centre and the University Library.
The SUTD is a highly sustainable building, incorporating numerous passive design strategies designed to counteract the conditions caused by Singapore’s tropical climate. Based on extensive orientation and wind studies natural ventilation principles are applied throughout the design, alongside cooling techniques, covered walkways, louvered facade shading, open voids, extensive daylight to the interiors and protection from heavy rain showers. The design for the SUTD campus achieved the highest Green Mark rating (Platinum) available in Singapore.
Photography By© UNStudio
Project Info.
Architects : UNStudio + DP Architects
Location : Singapore
UNstudio Team: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos, Astrid Piber with Christian Veddeler, Jordan Trachtenberg and Ren Horng Yee, Adi Utama, Jeff Johnson, Melissa Lui
DP Architects Team : DPA team: Chan Sui Him, Teoh Hai Pin, Jeremy Tan, Seah Chee Huang, Wykeith Ng, Liew Kok Fong, Wang Ying, Yeong Weng Fai, Jaye Tan
Year : 2015
Type : Educational/ University
Photographs : Hufton+Crow