Centennial Campus — HKU’s 2012 Westward Expansion and Its Three Signature Towers

# Centennial Campus: HKU’s 2012 Westward Expansion and Its Three Signature Towers

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) Comprehensive Information Database · 05 Campus Module

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# Why Did HKU Build the Centennial Campus in 2012?

The immediate driver for the Centennial Campus was a fundamental restructuring of Hong Kong’s education system — the “334 Scheme”. This reform extended the normative undergraduate degree from three years to four, taking full effect from 2012. It meant HKU would have to accommodate two cohorts simultaneously — the final three-year programme graduates and the first four-year entrants — causing a sharp surge in student numbers. According to HKU’s Estates Office, planning for the Centennial Campus began in 2005 with the express aim of “meeting the greater demand in student enrolment arising from the 334 academic reform.”^※

To gauge the scale of expansion needed, HKU completed an internal study in 2004, which concluded that roughly 100,000 square metres of additional space was required^※ to support the University’s ambition as a world-class research institution. Finding a contiguous plot of some one million square feet in Hong Kong’s hyper-dense Western District was an engineering challenge in itself. The solution lay in the hillsides directly west of the Main Campus.

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# Where Did the Land Come From? Building a Campus on a Hillside Reservoir

The site for the Centennial Campus was a cluster of fresh-water and salt-water service reservoirs, operated by the Water Supplies Department since the 1920s, on the western slope adjoining the Main Campus. To build there, these still-active reservoirs had to be decommissioned and relocated. The conventional approach — mass slope cutting and landfill — would have meant felling a large number of trees on the border of Lung Fu Shan Country Park^※ and generating massive amounts of construction waste.

HKU, the Water Supplies Department, and their engineering consultants instead adopted a first-of-its-kind method in Hong Kong: relocating two salt-water service reservoirs into caverns excavated within the Lung Fu Shan hillside. Each cavern measures roughly 50 metres long, 17.6 metres wide, and 17 metres high, with a maximum storage capacity of 12,000 cubic metres. The cavern works were completed and brought into service in 2009.^※ With the surface reservoirs vacated, the building site was freed up, while significantly reducing slope cutting, tree felling, and construction noise and dust, and preserving three graded historic buildings on the site^※. The “caverns for water, surface for campus” scheme was later recognised with an award from the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers.

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# Who Led the Design of the Centennial Campus?

In 2006, HKU staged an “Ideas Competition” for the masterplan of the Main and Centennial Campuses. The joint venture of Wong & Ouyang (HK) Ltd. and Sasaki Associates (USA) won first place.^※ Following the competition, Wong & Ouyang was formally appointed as Architect and Lead Consultant for the Centennial Campus; the main contractor was Gammon Construction Ltd.^※

According to Wong & Ouyang’s own master-plan documentation, the design philosophy can be distilled as: "a campus that embraces a diverse campus community, promotes environmental quality as a learning place, rediscovers and conserves the heritage buildings and landscape, provides efficient use of space, links effectively with the MTR and other public transport, is cost effective, and builds a sense of place unique to the University."^※ This statement of values weaves together principles of scholarly community, environmental and heritage stewardship, a unified campus, and an open and transparent planning process. In a sense, it also addresses a longstanding unease accumulated through HKU's historically fragmented campus development — how to keep expanding without isolating old and new quarters from each other. Wong & Ouyang later characterised the Centennial Campus as a project that “revitalised the whole campus, creating a sustainable learning environment and setting the foundation for future redevelopments on the Main Campus.” Awards won include: a Certificate of Merit in the New Buildings category at the Quality Building Award 2014, as well as a Merit Award in the Research & Planning Studies category at the Green Building Award 2008.^※

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# What Are the Three Academic Towers on the Centennial Campus?

The core of the Centennial Campus comprises three academic towers, each with its own named benefaction, housing the Faculties of Arts, Law, and Social Sciences respectively.

# Run Run Shaw Tower — Faculty of Arts

Run Run Shaw Tower is an 11-storey building, funded by a donation from the Shaw Foundation (Sir Run Run Shaw), which opened in 2012.^※ Before it was built, the Faculty’s teaching, research, and administrative units were scattered across various buildings on the Main Campus; the new tower brought its departments, research centres, and affiliated units under one roof, creating a unified academic hub for the Faculty of Arts. The ground floor features the Concourse Gallery, which hosts year-round exhibitions of artwork and photography by alumni, students, and staff, integrating academic space with cultural display. Complementing the tower is the adjacent Run Run Shaw Heritage House^※, originally the Senior Staff Quarters (built 1923–1924) of the Elliot Pumping Station, a graded historic building that now houses the Hong Kong University Press and the Society of Fellows in the Humanities.

# Cheng Yu Tung Tower — Faculty of Law

The dedication ceremony for Cheng Yu Tung Tower was held on 8 November 2012, marking the Faculty of Law’s first independent home since its founding in 1969.^※ For the preceding 43 years, the Faculty had operated from premises on Caine Road; the move into the new tower finally gave it a dedicated, integrated academic space. The building is named after its benefactor: Dr. Cheng Yu Tung and his family, who donated HK$400 million to HKU through the Chow Tai Fook Charity Foundation in 2008^※, one of the largest single private gifts the University had received at the time. The tower contains a Mooting Chamber, Advocacy Laboratories, a Postgraduate Research Commons, a Clinical Legal Education Centre, and student activity rooms. At the dedication ceremony, the former Chief Justice the Hon. Andrew Li Kwok-nang^※ remarked that “the continued vitality of the rule of law depends on the vigilance of everyone… Lawyers are made in law schools,” underlining the institutional significance of the new building for legal education.

# Jockey Club Tower — Faculty of Social Sciences

With a gross floor area exceeding 17,500 square metres, the Jockey Club Tower was built with a donation of HK$323 million from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. It opened in 2012 and serves as a unified home for the departments of the Faculty of Social Sciences.^※ The tower houses the Department of Geography’s Cartographica Laboratory and Library, whose collection includes roughly 61,480 map titles (with a focus on Hong Kong and Southeast Asia) and over 15,800 aerial photographs^※, constituting one of Hong Kong’s rare specialist cartographic archives. The building also hosts ExCEL3 (Excellence in Capacity-building on Entrepreneurship and Leadership for the Third-sector), an interdisciplinary platform. According to Faculty of Social Sciences materials, ExCEL3 aims to strengthen capacity-building for local NGOs, empower civil society, and simultaneously build teaching and research capacity on civil society within the University^※. Through training, sharing, and research, it fosters innovative and entrepreneurial spirit in the third sector (non-profit organisations), while creating a platform that links philanthropists, foundations, institutional investors, NGOs, and academia; the programme operates through three “Institutes” covering execution, services, and community. Under ExCEL3’s impetus, HKU launched Hong Kong’s first Master of Social Sciences in Nonprofit Management degree programme, whose students may simultaneously earn a Master of Public Affairs (MPA) from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University Bloomington. The Chinese calligraphy on the building's name plaque was personally inscribed by the renowned sinologist Professor Jao Tsung-i.^※

The map collection housed here actually began accumulating decades before the Jockey Club Tower was built. According to HKU’s Department of Geography, the collection holds over 1,500 geography theses and postgraduate dissertations dating back to 1968^※, and its aerial photography collection covers a vast majority of Hong Kong’s territory spanning from 1924 to 1996^※. The librarians have also indexed and catalogued some 4,000 British Admiralty charts. The Department documents indicate that the systematic accumulation of the collection began in 1977, when the then-head of department, Professor C.J. Grant, and his team, over an extended effort, built it into "one of the best equipped map libraries in the region."^※ The Geography Department itself was formally established as early as 1931. Teaching resumed after the Second World War in 1946, at which point the department immediately began restoring the equipment and collections dispersed during the conflict^※. In other words, the map collection that “moved into” the Centennial Campus along with the Jockey Club Tower carries with it a story of accumulation stretching back more than half a century within the Faculty of Social Sciences — it simply had to wait until 2012 to gain, alongside the rest of the Faculty, a concentrated and dedicated physical home of its own.

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# What Role Does the Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre and Grand Hall Play on the Centennial Campus?

Beyond the three academic towers, the Centennial Campus includes a dedicated lecture and cultural heart — the Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre^※, named after Dr. Lee Shau Kee, who donated HK$500 million in 2007 to support campus development and scholarships.^※

The centrepiece is the Grand Hall, with a seating capacity of over 1,000^※, complemented by 26 additional lecture theatres and classrooms, and a black-box theatre. The Grand Hall sits atop the site of a former Water Supplies Department underground reservoir. Built with a box-in-box structure, it has, by HKU’s own account, acoustics that make it potentially “one of the quietest venues in Hong Kong” — capable of supporting symphony orchestra performances, international academic conferences, and film premieres. The dedication ceremony was held on 6 January 2013^※, with an opening concert by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra that evening. It has since become the principal venue for the University’s Inauguration and Congregation ceremonies.

The audio system, designed by Shen Milsom & Wilke in collaboration with Jaffe Holden, features an electronically steerable sound reinforcement system that can automatically adjust sound field coverage and distribution to suit different event formats^※, and is compatible with widescreen surround-sound film screening. The same source notes that the Lecture Centre and its associated teaching facilities span roughly 84,000 square metres (about 900,000 square feet) of floor area and contain approximately 85 teaching spaces^※; some classrooms incorporate breakout discussion spaces and distributed video systems to support hybrid teaching.

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# How Does University Street Connect the Old and New Campuses?

The connection between the Centennial Campus and the Main Campus is carried by a complementary infrastructure project, University Street. University Street is a double-volume, covered pedestrian spine that links the Main Campus complex to the newly built Centennial Campus along an east-west axis^※. Its entire length is equipped with courtyards, sitting-out areas, charging sockets, and Wi-Fi. It also provides direct, ground-level access from Pokfulam Road to the MTR and other public transport.^※ The University Street project was completed in September 2013 at a cost of HK$220 million; Wong & Ouyang again served as Lead Consultant, and the contractor executed the works across three phases.^※

With the opening of University Street, the two campus quarters were physically knitted together — staff and students no longer need to exit the campus and cross public roads to move between them. According to Wong & Ouyang’s project description, University Street integrates a diverse array of spatial types — gardens, courtyards, sitting-out areas, and passageways — equipped with seats, tables, power outlets, and Wi-Fi^※, making it a place for both communal interaction and academic activity as well as quiet personal retreat. The Centennial Campus’s urban connection was further strengthened by the opening of the HKU MTR station in December 2014.

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# What Do the Centennial Campus’s Green Building Credentials Tell Us?

The Centennial Campus is HKU’s flagship project in green building. In January 2013, the campus was awarded LEED 2009 Platinum certification, making it the first higher education institution in Hong Kong to achieve this rating, and only the second organisation in the city overall to do so.^※ Simultaneously, it also achieved Platinum certification under Hong Kong’s own BEAM (Building Environmental Assessment Method)^※ — a dual LEED and BEAM Platinum achievement, a first among university building projects in Hong Kong.

The certifications spanned six categories: sustainable site development, water efficiency, energy efficiency, material selection, indoor environmental quality, and innovative design. Specific sustainable design measures include:

• Renewable energy: Rooftop photovoltaic panels and wind turbines (for power generation), and regenerative lift-power feedback systems.^※
• Water management: Low-flow taps and water-efficient irrigation; greywater and rainwater harvesting for reuse; air-conditioning condensate recovery and reuse.^※
• Building systems: The Grand Hall uses a displacement air-conditioning system; buildings are equipped with chilled-water storage tanks coupled to variable-speed chiller plants.^※
• Building layout: Strategic orientation to take maximum advantage of natural daylighting and natural ventilation.^※ Green roofs, sky gardens, and courtyards help mitigate the urban heat island effect.
• Underground infrastructure: The underground reservoir and cavern storage system place major infrastructure below ground, preserving the natural landscape at surface level.^※
• Interactive monitoring: According to HKU’s Estates Office, the campus features interactive dashboards that display real-time data on energy use, water consumption, waste, and recycling.^※

Furthermore, the campus was built into the hillside, with “the leafy slopes as its backdrop,” integrating the buildings with the natural environment of Lung Fu Shan and avoiding the ecological damage that large-scale slope cutting would have entailed.

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# How Did the Centennial Campus Reshape HKU’s Spatial Landscape?

The most profound impact of the Centennial Campus lies not in any single building, but in how it overhauled the overall configuration of HKU as a “hillside urban university.”

Before the Centennial Campus was built, the teaching and administrative units of the Faculties of Arts, Law, and Social Sciences were fragmented and dispersed across various buildings on the Main Campus — the academic ecosystems of all three faculties were long constrained by spatial shoestrings. The Centennial Campus gave each faculty its own independent tower, restoring a spatial sense of disciplinary identity: the Faculty of Arts gained Run Run Shaw Tower; the Faculty of Law, after 43 years in rented premises on Caine Road^※, finally received its first purpose-built home; and the Faculty of Social Sciences consolidated its previously scattered departments into the Jockey Club Tower.

The campus provided roughly 35% additional space for the University as a whole^※, directly dispelling the spatial pressure of a doubled undergraduate cohort under the 334 reform (an additional intake on the order of 3,000 students from 2012), while also activating the potential for functional reorganisation in some Main Campus buildings.

HKU’s Estates Office has described the Centennial Campus as something that “revitalised the whole campus, creating a sustainable learning environment.” It was not merely an expansion, but the starting point for the next round of planning on the Main Campus. Within a dense urban hillside environment, the narrative of this westwards push — exchanging cavern engineering for surface building land, meeting decarbonisation pressures with a dual-platinum green building standard, and bridging the pedestrian gap between two campus quarters with a covered University Street — forms a complete and coherent whole.

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# “Centennial Campus” and “Centennial College” Are Not the Same Thing

One point of confusion worth noting: HKU also established a self-financing, full-time four-year degree-granting institution called the “HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education — Centennial College.” It was set up by HKU in 2011 and took in its first cohort of students in 2012^※, with its premises near Wah Fu Estate in Pokfulam. It shares a similar-sounding name and a close founding date (both clustered around 2011–2012) with the physical campus site west of the Main Campus described in this article. However, the two are completely different in nature — the former is an independently operated, self-financing affiliate college, while the latter is a physical extension of HKU’s main teaching precinct. The Chinese and English names are sometimes conflated in informal usage; this database distinguishes them based on official sources and treats them as separate entities.

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# Unverified / To Be Confirmed

• The respective gross floor area of the three academic towers: The HKU Giving page only discloses that the Jockey Club Tower exceeds 17,500 square metres; the precise gross floor area of Run Run Shaw Tower and Cheng Yu Tung Tower is not currently disclosed in full on HKU’s public pages — this article does not hypothesise unverified figures.
• The total donation amount for Run Run Shaw Tower: The HKU Giving page confirms funding from the Shaw Foundation but does not list a specific monetary amount — this article reports according to the publicly available disclosure.
• Total construction cost of the cavern reservoir works: Public sources describe the nature and scale of the engineering but do not disclose the final cost.

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