Phase Two Campus Development Workshop successfully held
On the afternoon of October 25, launched and led by the President’s Office of HKUST(GZ), HKUST(GZ) held a new session of the Phase Two Campus Development and Construction Workshop. It was attended by campus leaders, representatives of relevant departments covering teaching, research, student affairs, lab management and logistics management, as well as representatives from the Administration Bureau of Nansha Industrial Park, the Architectural Design and Research Institute of the South China University of Technology and Weico Architecture Office. They contributed suggestions and insights to the development and planning of the Phase Two Campus, engaging in hot discussions.
Prof. Lionel M. Ni, President of HKUST(GZ), Prof. Qu Shaobing, Secretary of the CPC Temporary Committee of HKUST(GZ) and Prof. Wu Jingshen, Vice-President of HKUST(GZ) attended the workshop, which was hosted by Dr. Bin Li, Special Assistant t the President of HKUST (GZ) and Director of the President’s Office of HKUST (GZ).
Attendees participated in in-depth discussions about the colleges, lab buildings, teaching complexes, apartments for faculty, academic conference centers, and other spaces and buildings, from the perspectives of design style, space layout, and function planning.
How to build a college? It is an issue at the heart of the workshop. Discussions focused on how to integrate and reflect the pedagogy of HKUST(GZ) in the architecture, so as to build a world-class space for students with cross-disciplinary characteristics of KUST(GZ). Prof. Wu Jingshen, Vice-President of HKUST(GZ) believed that the architectural planning of the college should inject the concept of “Hub and Thrust” by breaking the traditional model. In the future, the college will mainly target undergraduates, while housing some postgraduates and faculty members who serve as their wardens and tutors, practicing the idea of “peering education”.
The land entrenching from the north of Phase One Library will be an important space for undergraduate teaching. Prof. Qu Shaobing pointed out that the overall design philosophy.
Prof. Lionel M. Ni, President of HKUST(GZ) pointed out that HKUST(GZ) would be a campus standing for a hundred years, so Phase Two of the HKUST(GZ) campus should fully capture the spirit of the student-centered pedagogy. During the construction of the Phase Two campus, the needs of students and teachers should be prioritized. Consensus has been reached at the workshop that the planning of indoor gymnasiums and outdoor sports fields should meet the needs of students in sports in the construction of the Phase Two campus. Attendees unanimously agreed that Phase Two should showcase the long-standing commitment of HKUST(GZ) to a sustainable and green campus. It is proposed that enough green space should be reserved in the core area for a “green lung” on campus.
Weico Architecture Office, a Beijing-based architectural firm, is the technology consulting agency for Phase Two of the HKUST(GZ) campus, which boasts rich experience in campus design for domestic innovative universities. Mr. Sun Wei, founder of Weico and also an alumnus of HKUST, said that based on his knowledge, there is little record of a domestic university engaging faculty in extensive consultation during the requirement gathering stage to jointly draw a blueprint. He hoped to implement HKUST(GZ)’s concept of cross-disciplinary integration featuring no schools and colleges in the design plan. “I have full expectations for Phase Two of the HKUST(GZ) campus”, he said.