SINGAPORE – After years of advocacy by students, a Nanyang Technological University (NTU) building has undergone a critical makeover to prevent fatal bird collisions as the academic year begins this August.
Since the completion of the School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) building in 2006, students have watched scores of birds crash into the gleaming building on the fringe of the forested Western Water Catchment.
These range from the yellow-rumped flycatcher to the black-backed dwarf kingfisher to the Japanese sparrowhawk.
This happened because the birds struggled to differentiate the reflective windows from the surroundings.
While the lucky ones survived the impact, the less fortunate succumbed to their injuries or drowned in a reflecting pool in the building’s courtyard.
Their deaths are part of a worldwide problem as urbanisation creeps into natural habitats. Annually, millions of birds die from striking buildings worldwide.
In Singapore, collision with man-made structures was named the top culprit of bird mortality cases logged since 2020.
At NTU, a student-led initiative named Project Avigate was launched in 2022 to reduce these fatalities, with students and alumni calling for the installation of anti-collision decals on the ADM building.
Made possible by $119,009.92 in joint funding from a Project Avigate fund-raiser and NTU, the patterned decals now cover about 800 sq m of the most dangerous glass panels identified by students.
The installation of the decals, a process that took a month, ended on July 31. The patterns remain largely invisible from a distance, preserving the building’s aesthetic facade, said a School of ADM spokesperson.
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