IMAGEABILITY - THE WAY TO A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY: A CASE STUDY OF THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

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.