Singapore university unveils Asia’s largest timber building

Singapore CNN — Singapore has long billed itself as a “garden city,” a term coined in the 1960s by the country’s founding father and former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. But 81-year-old Ito believes attitudes are “changing rapidly” in Asia, adding: “Singapore is especially quick to make these things a reality.” Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority claims that using mass timber can reduce dust and noise at construction sites, while speeding up projects by as much as 35%. Gaia’s designers have also added a “sacrificial layer” of wood to the building’s beams that, in the event of a blaze, would char while protecting the timber beneath it. NTU Singapore At the building’s opening, the university’s president Ho Teck Hua used his speech to boast of having the “greenest campus in Singapore.” Quite what the business school’s students make of their new home remains to be seen — classes don’t begin here until the new academic year starts in August.