Despite all of those interesting events, I don’t think I ever considered the campus, or even fully walked it.

  Nanjing University Main Gate – Apparently the 107th year is a very, very important year.

Nanjing University is a great example of an established, seasoned and integrated urban campus.  It’s gorgeous, probably one of my favourite campuses – yeah, yeah, yeah, and I did my undergrad at the University of Victoria , but I think it is an overrated campus – too car dependent and suburban…but it does have nice green space.

But I think Nanjing University has better urban green space – it’s definitely doesn’t have the natural features of UVic, but the green space is incredibly dense.

 
A rough approximation of Nanjing University campus, in Gulou District – I lived in the block directly north of the campus.  

 
Entrance boulevard – most of the campus is a perpetual canopy of greenery and cooling shade.

Like most Chinese universities, NanDa is gated, with just several entrances, however I find the entrances to be very well placed and integrate well with the surrounding fabric.  I don’t think this was intentional, but what is there now is very permeable, utilizing numerous north-south-east-west entry points allowing for easy public access through the campus grounds.  This is in contrast to Fudan which retains a similar gated design, but isn’t nearly as permeable and in some instances the layout is incredibly inconvenient (the entire east side of Fudan university doesn’t have a gate!).

I’m still looking for the correct vocabulary required to describe some Chinese urban designs, but a strong commonality is the prevalent use of the super-block combined with an internal street network.  Shades of Perry’s Neighbourhood Unit – channel vehicle traffic to the periphery while encouraging foot, cycle and slow auto traffic within.

In fact, Dr. Lu Duanfang has written quite extensively about the neighbourhood unit in China, especially as it relates to the Chinese planning concept of Danwei .

Danwei is very interesting – possibly more on that later.

Anyways, Nanjing University also makes use of a similar form of this…umm…form.  Human-sized streets, alleys and lanes within the larger block with emphasis placed on cycling and walking but with the option maintained for auto traffic (cars, buses) when required.

The NanDa coat of arms contains a tree – a very fitting description.

The Greenland Plaza building the background – not quite finished.

Campus building restoration – fantastic!  More of that and less of this nonsense.   My camera ran out of power at the point, so I didn’t get a shot of the fully restored architecture.  Beautiful.

It is an incredibly quiet campus, well shaded and cool – I even had a nap for about 40 minutes in on one of the benches (not the same one shown above!).

I had a post about the Queen’s University campus a few months ago.  I quite like Queen’s campus for the reason that it is so well integrated into the surrounding community with hardly any barriers to the surrounding residents.  But I don’t think I mentioned how damn gray the place is.  Aside from the rugby field, I can’t think of any significant green space – and the campus is over 150 years old.

Technorati Tags: campus planning, china, green space, nanjing, nanjing university, parks, trees, university campus, urban planning

Related posts:

1. Nanjing I – May 2009
2. Nanjing III – Xuan Wu Lake – 玄武湖
3. Campus Space

One of the things I admire about the Queen’s campus is the way it effortlessly incorporates itself within the surrounding urban space, streets and fabric. The municipal streets slice straight through the campus as if it wasn’t even there.  There are not gates, entrances, arches are grandiose signage that delineates the campus from the rest of the community.  Students, faculty, residents and visitors just walk, drive, ski (in the winter), bike and possibly skip straight through as if there wasn’t even a university occupying the land.

This is contrast to say, some other Canadian universities I’ve visited (admittedly, I’ve only seen a few) and I am sure there are more like Queen’s.  UVic, for example, which well-known for it’s campus landscaping (despite the monstrous architecture) is a suburban campus built inside and around a three kilometre ring road with clear entrances and exits.  Simon Fraser University (Vancouver) is built on a mountain, as is the University of Northern British Columbia (Prince George).  The University of British Columbia (Vancouver) is sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and a nice, but thick and protecting wall of giant timber.  Even McGill, which is smack in the middle of downtown Montreal has gates and defined entrances and exits.  Concordia is a little more urban quite incorporated into the downtown – I attended a conference there two weeks ago and walked right past the building I needed to be in.  I didn’t even know I was on a campus.

Chinese universities are also quite discrete from their surrounding space.  Many schools have, or are constructing, massive campuses out in the suburbs, creating what some people call ‘University Cities’.  These campuses are very isolated from the rest of the city and are almost all walled and gated, usually with guards. and curfews. The older, inner city campuses are very nice (Nanjing University, Nanjing Normal University etc.).  While they are gated from the surrounding city with defined entrances/exits their space remains permeable to the public, usually 24 hours a day. 

Nanjing Normal University Main Entrance – The Gate is always open

Nanjing Normal University – Main Entrance Lane

Nanjing University – Main Entrance Lane

I don’t have, nor could I find a decent photos Queen’s Union and University intersection.  This is probably Queen’s most obvious sign…just to let you know you are on a campus.

Technorati Tags: campus planning, nanjing normal university, nanjing university, public space, queens university, university campus, urban planning

Related posts:

1. Nanjing II – Nanjing University 南京大学
2. Nanjing I – May 2009
3. Delicous sodium-free campus culture events