The construction of UIC new student living center keeps attracting attention from staff and students since the ground breaking. Expectations are laid upon the beautiful valley at the foot of the Phoenix Hill. Instead of a place where several emotionless buildings stand coldly, people are expecting a lively and vigorous valley where their education ideal will come true.
June 15, UIC Executive Vice President Prof. Kwok Siu Tong and the architect of the living center exchanged their opinions on the construction. The blueprint of the Valley for Learning is stretching out in front of all of us at UIC.
Three Basic Requirements to the Valley for Learning
Prof. Kwok mentioned about the following three basic requirements to the Valley for Learning:
- Pure and Fine
As a space for living, study, and academic exchange, the living center should be purified by an inspiring academy atmosphere, which is the origin of all varieties and innovations.
- High Quality
The diversified space will satisfy the requirements for a post-modernized life style. It will not be a humdrum dining hall or dull dormitory. Participation and interaction will be the core of life there.
- Leisurable and Comfortable
Comparing with the regular teaching district, the living center should be comfortable and natural. Different activities and well-developed facilities create an easy atmosphere here.
A Brook of Life and a Living Wall
Prof. Kwok also described many tempting details. The brook that runs through the living center represents the animated life in the Valley. It softens the rigidness of the concrete buildings. Meanwhile, it is also a changeable element: aquatic activities, waterside performance platform, sand beach, lawn… When artists and aborigines from different nations gathered along the banks with their distinctive arts, cultures and traditions, the place will become a harmonious living wonderland for cultural learning and exchange.
The outer walls on the ground floor of the buildings will be another impressive detail in the general layout. They will be alive with designs and art pieces left by students. It will be an art corridor recording the trace of life of those who ever lived there. Prof. Kwok said that the walls would not turn old. They would be ever changing. When UIC alumni came back to the campus many years after their graduation, they might still find evidences of their college life on the walls.
To Implement the Educational Ideas
The effort to turn the living center into a broad, free and colorful “classroom” is a reflection of UIC’s Whole Person Education Concept. It is UIC’s exclusive ingenuity to help students accomplish round-scale development by creating a student-centered humanistic environment for the merging of learning into life experience and creation.
The future student living center will be completed with an Emotional Experience Center, a Language and Cultural Communication Center, and a Cultural Creativity Center. The Emotional Experience Center is an expansion of the Experiential Development Base. The Language and Cultural Communication Center will be consisted of different language labs, exhibition halls, and language training centers. It will provide an open and international space for language and cultural communication, and it will also be the base and the classroom of the Cultural Industry Management Major. The commercial street, art workshops, student activity center will together form the Cultural Creativity Center to show cultures from different nations and creativity of the students. It will provide a free space for students to fully develop their talent and expand their horizon in international culture.
Cheryl Chen/ Christy Zhao
Development and Public Relations Office
