Learning

Libya: University Campuses

Brief
During 2008 and 2009, Keppie was appointed to design eight university campuses as part of a twenty seven campus development programme in Libya. We had been approached by Argus; a logistics organisation working on infrastructure projects for the Libyan Government. ODAC (The Organisation for the Development of Administrative Centres) became our Client and we developed the educational prospectus with them. The eight campuses were located along Libya"s Mediterranean coast and required very different learning environments.
Response
The opportunity to design a programme of university campuses of the scale and diversity offered by this project is a unique one. Although part of a national educational framework, the geographical context for campuses in the west is completely different to those in the eastern part of the country. Each campus has individuality appropriate to its regional climate and surrounding environment and based on recognisable educational themes and functional relationships. The temptation to develop a generic design and repeat it was an obvious one but in our opinion it would not have reflected the distinctive characteristics of the local communities that the universities are intended to serve.
Outcome
Each of our campuses features a design of unique character. To do this Keppie developed a series of diagrams that explained our philosophy of how each campus should be organised and then how individual faculties would fit into this site strategy. This approach is based on four tiers of planning, taking the design from the macro to the micro such that changes in accommodation for individual faculties are disciplined by the strength of the overall development control masterplan.

Our involvement in the university campus projects in Libya has continued beyond the design stages for two of our campuses. Keppie is now implementation architect working with Italian contractor Impregilo Lidco for Zliten and Tarhuna Campuses.

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