SDE4 provides more than 1,500 square metres of design studio space, along with an open plaza, various public spaces, workshops, research centres, a cafe and a library.

London-based Serie Architects and locally based Multiply Architects won an international competition in 2013 to design the facility, which is part of a wider redevelopment of the university’s campus on Clementi Road near the southern coastline of Singapore.

The 8,500-square-metre, six-storey building for the School of Design and Environment was developed together with together with Singapore government-owned infrastructure and urban development consultancy Surbana Jurong.

Its green design is intended to reflect the school’s remit to promote design, sustainability and education in southeast Asia.

A range of flexible teaching spaces promotes a variety of uses, while enhanced interaction with the rest of the campus is promoted by an open architecture that creates visual and spatial connections with the outdoors.

“One of our ambitions when we started the project was to challenge the notion that a high energy efficient building has to be very opaque,” explained Christopher Lee, principal of Serie Architects. “The completed building is incredibly open.”

SDE4 comprises a collection of volumes and terraces described by the project team as “platforms and boxes” that define and express the building’s programmatic arrangement.

Staircases and corridors extend through the platforms to connect the different boxes, creating a flow of movement around the building that facilitates collaboration.

“SDE4’s large platforms are configured in a way that promotes interaction and visual connectivity,” Lee added.

“We envisioned a very transparent volume in which the outside and the inside spaces are ambiguous; where nature and landscape play an important part, as a backdrop to the building.”

This openness is also informed by sustainability principles borrowed from the tropical region’s vernacular architecture. One example is the verandahs, terraces and balconies that facilitate natural ventilation by promoting cross breezes to flow through the rooms.

Photography is by Rory Gardiner.