How Hong Kong schools are transforming to mirror university-style spaces
A wave of new and refurbished international school campuses is aiming to help students prepare for seamless tertiary transitions
Hong Kong’s international schools talk a great deal about preparing students for university. Increasingly, they are also building spaces with this in mind.
Stamford American School’s West Kowloon campus, which opened in October last year and caters to students aged 14 to 18, has been designed to operate more like a compact university than a traditional secondary school. Four years in the making, the new base spans 75,000 sq ft and complements the school’s Ho Man Tin campus, which serves students aged five to 14.
“Unlike traditional school layouts with rigid, isolated classrooms and fixed schedules, our West Kowloon campus transforms every space into an intentional learning environment,” says high school principal Ocki Fernandes.
Termed “learning communities” rather than classrooms, the spaces are flexible and dynamic. A vibrant ground-floor hub is designed for campus life and creative expression. On the first floor is a zone for humanities and library collaboration. The second floor is dedicated to scientific inquiry and well-being. The spaces are designed to be reconfigured quickly. Movable furniture, ergonomic seating, accessible power outlets, reliable connectivity and intuitive audiovisual tools allow students to reconfigure areas for individual study, group collaboration or interdisciplinary projects.