The past century has seen a pronounced development of higher education in China. Notably, the gross enrollment rate has risen from 0.1% in 1970 to 48.4% in 2016. Existing campus buildings in colleges and universities that hold great value because of their historical, cultural and environmental resources, have attracted an increasing amount of attention. Unfortunately, in many cases, campus buildings have to face issues concerning uniformity of spaces and poor adaptability to accommodate changing academic needs. These issues greatly impact not only the comfort of faculty and students but also the effectiveness of teaching & research. This paper focuses on the effective long-term space optimization regarding existing campus buildings in China, inspired by the concepts of Open Building and applying the detailed research of Southwest Building in Nanjing University, Gulou Campus as an example. The process consisting of investigation and space optimization design is introduced. By the design principles of “fixed space” and “variable space”, this paper demonstrates that the application of effective long-term space optimization design can greatly enhance the long-term utility of existing buildings. Numerical simulations of natural daylighting and ventilation by Ecotect and CFD also show an enhancement in building performance after the space optimization design. This research is beneficial to realizing the effective long-term utilization of campus buildings in universities and colleges. It can also be referred to for the renovation design of other kinds of existing buildings in China.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.