Major Green Buildings of Our Campus Completed ---
The Liberal Education Classroom Building and the
Environmental Research Building Inaugurated for Service

In keeping with the concept of holistic education, to foster the new generation of leaders, and to provide improvement and of the safety conditions of our laboratory spaces, our university recently completed the Liberal Education Classroom Building and the Environmental Research Building which are now open for service.

The concepts of environmental planning and architectural design of the 21st century differ greatly from those of the last century. The so called “green building” refers to buildings that integrate human wisdom and high technology, with a view toward return to nature. Its design concepts and its selection of construction materials are based on considerations for sustainable development, environmental protection, energy saving and ecology, as evidenced in the extensive use of natural and sustainable materials such as wood, stone, and metal, and in the resurgence of ecological engineering methods. The use of natural energies, and the respect for the natural environment have also become the trend for architectural design. For examples, the applications of solar energy, the earthwork construction of the land-base, the application and infiltration of rainwater, and the shape of the building blending into the surrounding environment have all become the mainstream concepts of design.

The construction of our liberal education classroom building was caused by our wish to improve the teaching environments of our general education courses and our common courses. Due to the shortage of large classrooms that could accommodate 120 people or more, and the shortage of small classrooms that could accommodate around 20 people, we decided to plan the construction of a modern building for teaching purposes. This new building, now completed, was named as the “Liberal Education Classroom Building” (The Po-ya Hall) by our faculty and students.

“The Liberal Education Classroom Building” is the fifth teaching building in our campus. It is a green building with five stories above ground and a basement, with 7 large-sized ladder classrooms and 21 small sized seminar rooms. The largest classroom in this building could accommodate more than 400 people, whereas the smallest classrooms could accommodate around 20 people. The building is also equipped with students’ open learning space and outdoor discussion space. In addition to providing classrooms for our common, required and service type courses that are currently being taught in other teaching buildings, and lending teaching space to all our teaching units, this new building also provides office space for our General Education Center, Academic Writing Center, Statistical Education Center, and the Center for Teaching and Learning Development. In total, this new building can accommodate 2000 faculty and students, plus around 60 research personnel.

The site of the Liberal Education Classroom Building (the Po-ya Hall) used to be the site of the Hall of the Department of Geography. The construction work started on March 23rd 2009, and was completed on January 31st, 2011. After completion, this new buildings looms large by the side of the Drunken Moon Lake, providing premiere teaching environment for our faculty and students, thereby enhancing the teaching quality of our campus. In the morning of February 22nd, President Si-Chen Lee will lead all our administrative heads to officiate the inauguration ceremony. In recent years, our Environmental Protection, Occupational Safety and Health Center has been implementing many forward looking businesses, including the compilation of NTU Environmental Protection and Occupational Safety Manual, the installation of semi-automatic heart defibrillators, the inspection of our laboratory set-ups, conducting inventory of our green house gases, and conducting environmental safety education and training of all kinds, etc., hence, the people who work in the center are in dire need of a comfortable research and office space. After three years construction, the new environmental research building held its inauguration ceremony in the afternoon on January 27th in the Yung-shu Hall. The opening of this new building will effectively integrate our resources relating to the supervision of environmental protection and occupational safety, its educational training and demonstrations, and bear special significance toward the improvement of safety conditions of our laboratory spaces and toward the development of a sustainable campus. Furthermore, through the teaching and research of our Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering we are amply assisted in conducting all kinds of environmental examinations and tests. In this instance we find the best example of research and administration supporting each other. The new Environmental Research Building is located at the bottom of Lane 155, Section III, Keelung Road. It is an architecture with five stories above ground and two basements. The first floor is used for all kinds of classroom and conference rooms. The second floor is planned for simulation laboratories. At present the Environmental Protection, Occupational Safety and Health Center takes up the space of Basement Two, and part of the space on the first, second, and third floors. The other spaces are used by the Institute of Environmental Engineering. The completion of this new building is expected to become an observation and exhibition center for the teaching of environmental protection and occupation safety for universities both domestic foreign, wherein we share our suggestions and experiences in promoting a sustainable campus with the external world.