The University’s Grounds are internationally famous. But few people — apart from maintenance workers and a few foolhardy steam tunnelers — have explored what lies underneath them. The conventional wisdom that a college’s campus consists of above-ground buildings still holds for the University. For some schools in Singapore, however, this may not be the case for much longer.
In one of the more bizarre pieces of news coming out of the higher-education world, researchers at a few top Singapore universities recently revealed that they had completed preliminary studies to determine how they might develop the space beneath their campuses. Adding facilities, not all of which are academic, seems as much of a concern for Singapore’s schools as it is for institutions in the United States. These universities are seeking to install underground sports facilities, performance halls, libraries and laboratories. The extracurricular-oriented buildings in particular beg the question: have such facilities become so expected at universities that schools are willing to go literally underground in order to add them?
Nanyang Technological University, the National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University are strapped for space. The University’s Grounds are bucolic. Its construction projects result in sprawl. Singapore Management University, in contrast, is in a densely packed urban area. Extending the university’s borders is not an option. So the school has already gone partially underground. It has constructed a basement-level space that links its five main buildings.
The underground-expansion plans coming out of Singapore’s institutions point to some intriguing tensions concerning how universities use physical space. It is often easy for students, lost in their heads, to forget that universities are physical communities with real impacts on their environments. On the other hand, academic administrators — engaging in a facilities-building arms race to keep pace with competitors — sometimes risk privileging construction projects over academic goals.
The University, of course, provides a prime example for how an institution can manage space effectively. The Academical Village unites intellectual goals with a physical layout. It is possible that if Singapore’s universities pursue underground development, they could establish a system of connecting caverns or buildings that meld landscape with academic ideals to a similar degree. In any case, these schools should pursue construction projects that bolster their core academic missions, rather than building for the sake of building.
The Singapore universities’ plans also remind us of the ecological effects universities have on the communities of which they are a part. Underground drainage systems and utility tunnels are already part of most urban landscapes. But the existence of underground facilities does not mean that such facilities are environmentally benign. Universities that wish to build subterranean facilities should be conscious of potentially harmful environmental consequences. Underground construction can drain a community’s groundwater and reduce the flow of surface water.
The idea of an underground library or swimming pool is, in some ways, charming, like a fantasy. But schools considering underground expansion should ensure that they are building responsibly and with attention toward what their construction projects will do for students and faculty. Overdevelopment is overdevelopment, even when it’s under everything else.
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