Staff and students will have extra space for teaching and learning, as well as for work and relaxation, with the recent opening of a 300-seater lecture theatre and Green House facilities and planned new classrooms and other facilities.
The University has always been concerned with the need to generate more space to cope with continuous development and the growing student population. Three major buildings—the Creative Media Centre, the Community College Building and an academic-administrative building for the four-year curriculum—have been confirmed to be built to prepare the University for a new phase of development in four to six years’ time. The Creative Media Centre and the Community College Building are targeted for completion in 2008-09; whereas the academic-administrative building for the four-year curriculum is expected to be finished in 2011.
The three new buildings will cater for the University’s mid- to long-term development. In the meantime, the University has completed several facilities improvement projects in recent weeks, including the opening of the converted lecture theatre in the
AmenitiesBuilding and Green House facilities on the rooftop of the
AcademicBuilding, in order to alleviate short-term space shortage and to enhance campus ambiance.
Professor Y S Wong, Vice-President (Administration); and
Mr K Y Wong, Director of the
Facilities Management Office (FMO), reviewed these projects and others that are in the pipeline, which will improve the lives of students and staff members on campus.
“These improvement projects reflect the University’s commitment to creating a campus environment conducive to effective learning and teaching and providing a comfortable and relaxed ambience for study and work,” said Professor Wong.
(Please click
here
for a detailed review of these projects)
The shortage of teaching venues on campus has been mitigated with the opening of the newly converted 300-seater lecture theatre and the construction of two 80-seater classrooms on the flat roof in the Purple Zone of the
AcademicBuilding. The situation will be further improved with the construction of 12 temporary 80-seater classrooms near the Student Hostels on
Cornwall Street, to be completed by September, Professor Wong said.
The University has also generated more space with better utilization of existing premises, Professor Wong said. The flat roof on the
AcademicBuilding has been utilized to build proper greenhouses, creating laboratory facilities for teaching and learning. The To Yuen Building, currently used as residence for visiting scholars and exchange students, will be converted into an office block to ease shortage of office space and cut down expenditure in renting off-campus premises. Meanwhile, the dinning area at City Top on the ninth floor of the
AmenitiesBuilding has been extended to provide staff with more space for relaxation.
The campus has greatly elevated its cultural ambiance with the installation of two giant murals by Professor Yuan Yunsheng at the Entrance Hall of the third floor of the AcademicBuilding. The two murals, entitled “Scholar in Contemplation with Guqin” and “Wanhu Propelled to Heaven”, symbolize CityU’s pursuit of excellence both in the area of humanities and sciences.
“I would like to extend my thanks to the University community for bearing with FMO on the noise and inconvenience that these improvement projects have brought it in the past year,” said FMO’s Mr Wong. “The achievements in space creation and ambiance improvement could not have been realized without their patience.”
