Pelli Clarke Pelli • Singapore

The entry gate to the new Yale-NUS College Campus, in Singapore, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli. Image: Pelli Clarke Pelli 

Ground was broken July 6th for the Yale-NUS College campus, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in collaboration with Forum Architects of Singapore.

Jointly created by Yale University and the National University of Singapore, Yale-NUS College, the campus is scheduled to open in 2015, and is designed to achieve the highest rating under the Green Mark, Singapore's benchmark for sustainable design.

The 62,000-square-meter (670,000-square-foot) campus is composed of courtyards punctuated by residential towers, along with a community of learning, and social spaces. At its heart is a campus green flanked by academic and administrative buildings, including the learning commons, auditorium, sports hall, and an open-air, sheltered gathering place -- the Agora.

Aerial rendering of the new Yale-NUS campus Image: Pelli Clarke Pelli 

Comprising three residential colleges for 1,000 students, the campus balances the traditions of Yale with the cultural and climatic influences of Southeast Asia. Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects developed a contemporary architectural language of clear and inviting processional entrances, sun and rain-screened colonnades and roof forms with generous eaves.


The residential colleges, each home to 330 students plus faculty, form nested academic communities. Tower floors are grouped into neighborhoods around skygardens. The tower designs and those of the courtyards, dining halls, and common rooms will differ in each residential college.

The new campus design is based on original programming, a master plan and early architectural plans developed by KieranTimberlake and Pfeiffer Partners Architects.

A dining room at the Yale-NUS College campus. Image: Pelli Clarke Pelli