IMAGEABILITY - THE WAY TO A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY: A CASE STUDY OF THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
LI YING, IDA
LI YING, IDA
Citations
Altmetric:
Alternative Title
Abstract
As the National University of Singapore (NUS) moves towards being a world-class
university, special attention must be paid to planning its environment not only to achieve
optimal usage but also to give it a distinctive campus like other world-class universities.
For a university campus to be successful, its users must find it imageable, legible and
likable
Using the concepts of imageability, legibility and likability, the study attempts to
understand the perceptions of students using the campus. A survey was conducted to
capture the ranking of factors and to gather feedback regarding the types of features
preferred by the students. Questions requiring students to think about how much they like
their surroundings and a mental mapping exercise were included in the questionnaire.
These were used to gauge the quality of the campus plan.
Charts and tables were used to compare the results of the survey in terms of residence on
campus, citizenship, school of study, year of study and gender. Statistical tests were later
used to analyse the results to confirm and highlight significant findings. A tabulation of
the most common responses reveals that students found places that were often visited or
allowed relaxation legible, imageable and likable. Thus, the Halls of Residence were
considered the favourite places of many respondents. Nodes of activity that stimulated interest were deemed likable together with places with
nature and open space. Respondents also preferred features in the built environment that
housed facilities that satisfied basic needs such as food and shopping. They also disliked
having to climb the gradients on campus and in general found the layout of NUS
confusing.
Findings show that higher exposure and experience of an environment increase
imageability. Recommendations for the improvement of the campus according to the
preferred features are discussed and shown in a map.
Keywords
Source Title
Publisher
Series/Report No.
Collections
Rights
Date
2002
DOI
Type
Thesis