Located in Singapore, in the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the Learning Hub South, or The Hive, is a new educational landmark for the city. It’s a multi-usage building made to host up to 33,000 students.

With its daring design, the building aims to showcase the NTU’s new approach towards collaborative and interactive learning styles. It also has a very distinctive eco-friendly feature, a unique ventilation system that is based on passive displacement ventilation process, where no fan is needed for air distribution. This alternative to conventional air conditioning saves up to 30% energy expenses.

Instead of a regular, rectangular, form of an educational building with miles of corridors, the university pursued a design that reflected their way of teaching. With the trend to use digital technologies in the learning system, classes can take place anywhere. In this context, classrooms are no longer a place for lessons but a venue where students and professors from various disciplines can meet and interact.

To complete the building design and aesthetic choice, a good lighting design scheme was necessary. On the inside of The Hive, part of the design was made and calculated to facilitate the learning and teaching process. As we can see in the picture above, there’s good light uniformity in the classrooms, focusing on overcoming any shadows that might cause discomfort to the students. However, outside of the classrooms and any other rooms used for work, the lighting design was based on creating a more active experience using a dynamic chiaroscuro and light bulbs with different colour temperatures. This use of light creates a new ambiance in a single space. Certain areas of the building are warmer and more relaxing while others can be more work-focused with better visual clarity.

On the outside, the lighting design focused on showing and strengthening the circularity of each of the building parts. Taking the advantage of the building’s own apertures at some heights, the lighting design changed the areas of the exterior that is dark on the day to horizontal lines of light that place more emphasis on the form of the edifice, accentuating the feeling that the design is audacious and correlated with the new digital trends on education.

Illuminating public buildings needs to fulfil a wide variety of needs: the spatial plan and design aspects, together with the financial framework conditions, form the basis for the lighting concept.
The range of tasks can include a variety of nuanced architectural situations beginning with the facade and lighting of the entrance zone and foyer, circulation zones such as stairs and corridors and multifunctional rooms and peripheral areas required for management, workshops and archives.

Illuminating public buildings needs to fulfil a wide variety of needs: the spatial plan and design aspects, together with the financial framework conditions, form the basis for the lighting concept.
The range of tasks can include a variety of nuanced architectural situations beginning with the facade and lighting of the entrance zone and foyer, circulation zones such as stairs and corridors and multifunctional rooms and peripheral areas required for management, workshops and archives.

PSA has been an integral part of Singapore since the founding of the nation. Located at the heart of Southeast Asia, Singapore is strategically at the nexus of major shipping routes, connecting 600 ports, making it an important logistic hub in the world. In Singapore, PSA operates in total 57 berths at four container terminals in Tanjong Pagar, Keppel, Brani and Pasir Panjang. To meet growing demand, PSA also developed Pasir Panjang Terminal Phases 3 and 4, which were completed in 2015.

Transhipment is the core business of PSA. Thanks to its unrivalled location, connectivity, and top-notch services, PSA has been the port operator of choice. The scale of operation has grown significantly over the years. In 1972, PSA handled 25000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). In 2014, this grew to 33.55 million TEUs, 1350 times more than what PSA could handle before. With the new terminals, the total capacity is expected to reach 50 million TEUs. The size of vessels has also increased, from 230 metres, with a capacity of 3000 TEUs in 1980, to 400 metres, containing 19000 TEUs in 2014. As PSA grew, many businesses have also prospered in Singapore.