CityU Campus Location, Internal Zoning, and Building Directory

City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) Integrated Information Database · 05 Campus Module

No hillsides, no lake, no walled green expanse — the main campus of City University of Hong Kong (hereafter ‘CityU’) is one of the rare urban campuses in Hong Kong that is ‘built atop a shopping mall and connected to an MTR station’. It stacks an integrated complex of teaching buildings directly above Festival Walk, a large shopping centre on Tat Chee Avenue in Kowloon Tong, and lies only a few minutes’ walk from Kowloon Tong MTR station. To understand the CityU campus, one must first grasp this distinctive spatial logic of ‘vertical stacking + pedestrian connectivity’; and then trace its trajectory of ‘multi-node expansion’, from a temporary campus in Mong Kok, to the move to Kowloon Tong, and in recent years to Whitehead in Ma On Shan and Songshan Lake in Dongguan.

A note on conventions: all factual statements are sourced at the end of the article. Area figures, years, and geographic relationships are based on current records from the University and authoritative entries; where figures differ slightly, this is noted. This article focuses on four threads — siting, connectivity, zoning, and expansion — and includes a quick-reference building directory. For the design details and naming stories of individual buildings, see Campus Landmarks; for transport and living facilities, see Transport and Facilities.

---

# I. Site: Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong — a ‘city-centre’ campus

CityU’s main campus is located at Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, and its administrative address bears that name; the campus sits in the Kowloon Tong area of Kowloon, one of the most central urban districts in Hong Kong. The main campus covers approximately 15.6 hectares (around 39 acres)^※ — measured against the tens or even hundreds of hectares occupied by some Hong Kong universities, this is a highly compact, premium-space ‘metropolitan campus’.

This compactness is both the cost and the distinctive feature of a city-centre site. Unlike CUHK in Ma Liu Shui, Shatin, which spreads across the hillsides, or HKUST on Clear Water Bay, which enjoys a secluded sea-facing position, CityU compresses the vast majority of its teaching, research, administrative and living functions into a small cluster of large buildings on Tat Chee Avenue, linked by footbridges and podium-level walkways. Most of the time, students can move from one building to another without stepping outside, moving instead through internal link bridges, lifts and escalators — this layout, dominated by indoor circulation, is the most immediate physical impression of the CityU campus.

---

# II. Relationship with Festival Walk and Kowloon Tong Station: built above a mall, connected to the MTR

The most talked-about feature of the CityU campus is its special relationship with the shopping centre at its feet, Festival Walk.

# The entity that is Festival Walk

Festival Walk is a large shopping centre at 80 Tat Chee Avenue, jointly developed by Swire Properties and CITIC Pacific, which opened on 13 November 1998^※. The complex consists of a seven-storey shopping mall with four office towers above it, housing around 220 shops, a cinema, an ice rink, and a three-level basement car park. Festival Walk is directly connected to Kowloon Tong MTR station — which serves both the East Rail Line and the Kwun Tong Line^※.

# How the campus ‘stacks’ on top of the mall

The CityU campus and Festival Walk are structurally stacked and connected by pedestrian links: The CityU campus is linked to the Festival Walk shopping mall by pedestrian walkways, and Festival Walk in turn is directly connected to Kowloon Tong MTR station (East Rail Line and Kwun Tong Line)^※. From a visitor’s perspective, from Kowloon Tong MTR station, it takes about 5 minutes on foot via Festival Walk to reach the CityU campus^※.

In other words, the typical flow for students, staff and visitors is: Kowloon Tong Station → Festival Walk → CityU teaching complex, all threaded together by indoor passages and podiums. This ‘university–shopping mall–MTR station’ stacking is rare among universities in Hong Kong and globally: the mall acts as the university’s ‘portico’, and the MTR station as its ‘vestibule’. The convenience is obvious (transport, dining, retail all within arm’s reach), but it also means the campus is highly interwoven with urban public space, lacking the traditional sense of ‘territory’ defined by walls and trees. The pedestrian link between the mall and the campus is colloquially known as the ‘Time Tunnel’; its planning origins, ownership changes, and 2025 renovation are detailed in Transport and Facilities.

The campus itself has access control: Opening hours for holders of campus credentials are 07:00–23:00 daily, with access control in place^※. The campus is about a 30-minute drive from Hong Kong International Airport (according to University campus information).

---

# III. Internal zoning: the colour-coded megablock

The zoning logic of CityU’s main campus is radically different from universities that cascade across hillsides — its core is not elevation, but a colour-coded wayfinding system within a single megastructure.

The central academic building, Yeung Kin Man Academic Building (formerly Academic 1), has a floor area of approximately 63,000 square metres (around 680,000 square feet), housing 116 laboratories, 18 lecture theatres and classrooms, restaurants, etc.^※. Because of its enormous volume and complex circulation, the building is divided by colour into five zones: Purple (P), Green (G), Blue (B), Yellow (Y) and Red (R)^※. Staff and students locate themselves using ‘colour + floor’ coordinates like ‘Red Zone, 2nd floor’ or ‘Yellow Zone, 5th floor’ — this colour-zone system is the signature wayfinding feature of the CityU campus and the first piece of ‘campus language’ that newcomers must master.

Around the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, the main campus functions can be broadly divided into several clusters:

• Core academic and research zone: Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, Li Dak Sum Yip Yio Chin Academic Building (Academic 2), Lau Ming Wai Academic Building (Academic 3), and other academic blocks, which house most departments, classrooms, laboratories, the library, and administration.
• Creative media zone: on the Tat Hong Avenue side, the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, a relatively independent signature building.
• Sports zone: Hu Fa Kuang Sports Centre and the Joint Sports Centre, etc.
• Living / accommodation zone: the student residence cluster on Cornwall Street (11 blocks) and, outside the main campus, the Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village in Whitehead, Ma On Shan (see Student Residence System).

For detailed design, naming and architects of the three core academic blocks and the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, see Campus Landmarks; for a quick reference to the use and naming of each building, see Section V of this article, Building Directory.

---

# IV. Expansion History: from Mong Kok temporary campus to multi-node growth

CityU’s present-day urban campus did not appear overnight; it evolved through a sequence of ‘temporary start – move to Kowloon Tong – phased expansion – multi-node growth’.

# Mong Kok temporary campus (1984)

The predecessor institution, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, was established and began classes on 8 October 1984, enrolling an initial cohort of 480 full-time and 680 part-time students^※. Without a permanent campus at the time, the government purchased Phase II of Argyle Centre in Argyle Street, Mong Kok, to serve as a temporary campus^※.

# Move to Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong (1990) and phased expansion

The first phase of the permanent campus on Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, officially opened on 15 January 1990, with 14 lecture theatres and about 1,500 computers; the second phase was completed in 1993, expanding capacity to around 20,000 students^※. In 1994, the polytechnic was renamed City University of Hong Kong^※; 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the university title.

Since then, the main campus has consistently expanded in situ through ‘Alterations, Additions and Improvements (AA&I)’ works: adding academic buildings atop existing podium decks (the Lau Ming Wai Academic Building is CityU’s tallest building), building the new Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre on the Tat Hong Avenue side, and continually upgrading sports, catering, and library facilities. Constrained by its urban site, CityU’s expansion has been more about ‘stacking upwards’ and ‘unlocking internal potential’ than spreading outwards.

# Multi-node extension: Whitehead, Ma On Shan and Songshan Lake, Dongguan (2024)

Entering the 2020s, CityU’s physical boundaries burst beyond the Tat Chee Avenue headquarters:

• Whitehead, Ma On Shan: The student residences built by CityU at Whitehead in Ma On Shan became operational in the third quarter of 2024^※, later named the Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village, providing over 2,000 bed spaces (see Student Residence System for details).
• Songshan Lake, Dongguan: City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan) held its opening ceremony on 2 September 2024^※, located in the Songshan Lake High-tech Industrial Development Zone (Science City) in Dongguan^※, as CityU’s extended campus in the mainland Greater Bay Area (its institutional status, admissions and positioning are detailed in the internationalisation/mainland China module; omitted here).

Thus, CityU now forms a multi-node structure of ‘Kowloon Tong headquarters (academic hub) + Whitehead, Ma On Shan (residence village) + Songshan Lake, Dongguan (Greater Bay Area campus)’, but Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, remains its core of teaching and administration.

---

# V. Building Directory: a quick-reference table

This section presents, in tabular form, the main buildings of the CityU main campus with their Chinese name, English name, old name/code, naming origin, and primary function, for easy reference. For detailed architectural features, designers and landmark significance of each building, see Campus Landmarks; for sports, catering and accommodation facilities, see Transport and Facilities and Student Residence System.

A note: for naming origins involving donors, the donors’ names are recorded as they appear in public records; where no source could be verified, we mark ‘unverified’. This directory aims to cover the main buildings but does not claim to include every single building and ancillary facility on campus; the University’s current Campus Map is the definitive reference.

Note: The Chinese and English names and naming origins of individual residence blocks, due to their number and the involvement of the new Ma On Shan residence village, are listed under Student Residence System; this table only provides a pointer and does not duplicate them.

# Naming patterns

The naming of buildings on the CityU main campus generally follows two principles:

1. Function-based naming: e.g. Amenities Building, Academic Exchange Building, Joint Sports Centre, and the early academic blocks numbered ‘Academic 1/2/3’ — named straightforwardly after their purpose, making them easy to identify.
2. Donor naming: CityU’s three core academic buildings were later named after major donors (Yeung Kin-man; Li Dak-sum and Yip Yio-chin; Lau Ming-wai), and the same applies to the library, creative media centre, sports centre and gallery (Sir Run Run Shaw; Hu Fa-kuang; Harry Banga, etc.). This type of naming both acknowledges benefactions and forms the bulk of CityU’s building directory — to read the names of CityU’s buildings is almost to read a ‘donor roll’ of the University (donation backgrounds are covered in the finance module).

Notably, the naming history of the three academic buildings — numbered first, named later (Academic 1 → Yeung Kin Man, Academic 2 → Li Dak Sum Yip Yio Chin, Academic 3 → Lau Ming Wai) — means that in everyday speech, students and staff still commonly refer to them as ‘AC1’/‘AC2’/‘AC3’, while official documents use the donor names. This ‘dual naming’ is a feature of campus language at CityU.

# Unverified and pending

• To Yuen Building: the naming origin (functional or donor) has not been authoritatively verified by our editors and is marked ‘unverified’, pending further confirmation from University campus records.
• Small ancillary facilities (such as individual catering outlets, convenience stores, small labs/workshops) and a precise list of building codes are not exhaustively included in this directory; the University’s current Campus Map and building opening hours page are the authoritative sources.

---

# VI. Summary: a university ‘layered into the city’

If one had to capture the geographical character of the CityU main campus in a single phrase, it is a university ‘layered into the city’. It has no hillside, no lake, no sprawling territory enclosed by walls; it compresses its teaching and research functions into a cluster of megablocks on Tat Chee Avenue, stacked atop a shopping mall, hugging an MTR station entrance, organised internally by colour zones and linked by footbridges. This gives it unrivalled convenience in transport and daily life, but also makes its ‘campus feel’ closer to a vertically growing metropolitan institution intimately woven into the urban fabric, rather than the traditional ‘ivory tower’ set apart.

---

# Sources

• City University of Hong Kong — Wikipedia — secondary (campus size, colour zones, institutional history, expansion, area and architects of academic buildings)
• CityU website · About · Campus — official (site, relationship with Festival Walk and Kowloon Tong Station, opening hours, visitor accommodation)
• Festival Walk — Wikipedia — secondary (Festival Walk scale, opening, connections to Kowloon Tong Station and CityU)
• Grand opening of City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan) (CityU website, 2024-09-02) — official (Dongguan Songshan Lake campus)
• CityUHK holds Opening and Naming Ceremony for Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village (CityU website, 2024-12-11) — official (Whitehead residence village)
• CityUHK … grand opening of the Hu Fa Kuang Sports Centre (CityU website, 2026-05-27) — official (Hu Fa Kuang Sports Centre naming and facilities)
• Naming of the Indra and Harry Banga Gallery (CityU website, 2019-11-05) — official (Banga Gallery naming)

# Cross-references

• Campus Landmarks · Architectural Style, Green Campus and Net-Zero Carbon Infrastructure · Transport and Facilities · Student Residence System