HKUST Graduate School

Project description

Location: Nansha·Guangzhou·China

Client: HKUST

Architect: NODE , S333

Project Team:
NODE: Doreen Heng LIU (principal), Sebastian Kettner, Jie-Bin HUANG
S333: Burton Hamfelt (principal-in-charge), Kees Draisma

Structure and Material: concrete & Steel structure

Site area: 33,500 sqm

Architectural area: 47,000 sqm

Design Period: 2006.05 - 06

Construction Period: 2008

Education without Borders

The new facility will be HKUST's first off-shore campus in Mainland China. Being an entity as much as being part of the IT Park, the new facility will form a "Campus Inside Campus". Our proposal is built upon the idea of combining the traditional Chinese landscape, found throughout the existing IT Park with contemporary architectural expression. In contrast of the large one-building complex and urban setting of the HongKong Campus, the NanSha school will be granted a rural ambience between water and suitable for a unique academic research lifestyle.

Campus inside Campus

Our proposal wants first,to build on this unique setting through the concept of the many campus buildings in one. The second reason is that due to the nature of education, the buildings need to juggle quite often conflicting demands, spaces need to remain flexible and but also functional, one identity versus many departments, conducting research and combining administration, local presence but also global identity. Thus we need to seek a new form of synergy within these challenges in the form of a robust concept for the architecture. We feel this is resolved through the concept of the ‘Campus inside Campus.'