SMU plans campus revamp to add buzz, ease space woes

SMU has announced plans to redevelop its city campus to ease its space crunch. The $20 million project, which will start in August and end in 2017, will add more teaching and learning spaces. Its centrepiece is a 240-seat amphitheatre on the green space between the Singapore Art Museum and the National Museum of Singapore. A three-storey fitness centre and a co-curricular centre will have glass facades and look out onto the campus green. SMU President Professor Arnoud De Meyer said that SMU is committed to providing adequate and flexible learning and teaching spaces, as well as places for collaboration and recreation. Professor De Meyer noted that a key feature of SMU's campus is its “porosity”, with the public having access to the ground and basement levels, and added that SMU was committed to keeping its campus accessible to all. He said: “By 2017 when the project is completed, I envisage that the campus green will be a ‘playground’ where students, stakeholders and members of the public will interact and mingle... through performances, fitness activities and sports. I am confident that SMU Campus Green can become the pulsating heartbeat of the Bras Basah precinct once again.”