The new building is designed for a modern format of education, when "streaming" lectures and passive perception of knowledge by students are a thing of the past, classes are held in small groups, and students are expected to be maximally active in mastering disciplines. In addition, the achievements of the "digital" era, when any convenient corner is suitable for study, are taken into account: after all, access to resources is open from everywhere.
The training center consists of 12 concrete towers grouped around an atrium. Each of them is made up of “disks” of classrooms (there are 56 of them in total), which can be transformed depending on the needs of the educational process. In addition, the rounded shape helped to get rid of the "first and last seats": all seats have equal status and are equally comfortable. Landscaped terraces and balconies are provided for self-study, casual meetings and exchange of ideas.
The façade panels were cast using a special silicone formwork, which made it possible to create horizontal patterns on them; the inclined columns of the first floor have their own texture. The walls of the staircase and elevator nodes are decorated with 700 stylized reliefs based on drawings by the artist Sara Fanelli. Their plots are drawn from both the exact and natural sciences and the history of art and literature and are intended to inspire discoveries among students, faculty and researchers at Nanyang University.
