Students lead effort to save birds from crashing into iconic NTU building

Birds would fly straight into the glass facade thinking the windows are part of landscape

- Ang Qing

For nearly two decades, an iconic building of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has wowed visitors with its green, sloped roofs and efficient design that has bagged the university an award for environmental consciousness.

Shortly after the School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) building’s completion, however, feathered visitors began to drop dead within its curved confines.

The birds had flown straight into the sleek, glass facade of the building, which conjured the illusion that its windows were part of the sky and surrounding landscape.

During the peak of the southward migratory season, when birds arrive in Singapore as they make their journeys to avoid winter in the north, birds collide with the ADM building on a near daily basis, NUS’ Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum’s assistant senior curator of birds Tan Yen Yi told The Straits Times.

A total of 122 collisions involving 22 bird species were recorded by Project Avigate – an NTU student-led initiative - during the past three migratory seasons.

“While the high number of reports from the building could also be an artefact of the students’ monitoring efforts, it is unequivocal evidence that this building is deadly for birds,” said Dr Tan, noting that the phenomenon affecting all cities worldwide is “invisible yet deadly”.

After witnessing one such collision just metres from his dormitory in September 2022, Mr Zachary Chong, then an NTU environmental earth systems science student, and his peers started Project Avigate to investigate the extent of these avian deaths and make the building safer for birds.