The Fung Shui Ridge, the One-World Fountain, and the "Lift-as-Address" Puzzle

Note: This page distinguishes verified content (with official/media sourcing) from campus-lore content (marked 【坊間/戲説, campus hearsay/lore】, circulated by word of mouth on campus, unverified).

HKUST's Clear Water Bay campus carries a number of pieces of lore. This article picks three that are both interesting and traceable: the campus built along a Fung Shui Ridge, the One-World Fountain said to represent the five continents, and the maze-like circulation system in which lift numbers double as addresses, which regularly leaves visitors lost. This article supplements Campus Landmarks and Lore^※.

# I. Fung Shui Ridge: Was HKUST "built according to fung shui"? (Verified, with official documentation)

A fact that often surprises people: HKUST — a university named for "science and technology" — has a documented connection to fung shui, and this is attested by an article from HKUST's own library.

According to an HKUST Library article titled "Science and Fung Shui, Side-by-Side"^※, there is a natural feature near the North Gate bus stop known as the "Fung Shui Ridge"^※. The article states: "HKUST was also built following the principles of Fung Shui. This ridge, along with the surrounding mountains and forest, serves as a barrier against the natural environment as well as home to a diverse ecosystem."^※

What is more interesting is the article's framing — it does not treat fung shui as superstition, but reinterprets it as observation-based environmental knowledge. The article gives the example that "a community near a lake could be advantageous, since a lake is a source of food and water while also helping to moderate local temperature"^※, illustrating how such practical environmental wisdom accumulated across generations. Its central point is: "Fung Shui is a way for humans to coexist with, and find comfort in, their environment and lifestyle — not unlike what we try to achieve today through science."^※

This official "science and fung shui, side by side" framing is worth noting: a science-and-technology university decorates its campus with "ancient Eastern science" objects such as the Red Bird Sundial and armillary sphere (see Landmarks and Public Art^※), while also openly acknowledging that the campus was "built following fung shui principles," linking fung shui to science through an observational lens. This unhurried attitude toward traditional knowledge is itself a notable detail of HKUST's campus culture.

It is worth noting that the "Fung Shui Ridge" is not merely a passing line in the library article — according to public materials, the ridge itself appears in the architects' original campus design drawings^※, indicating it was not a retrospective interpretation but an actual topographical feature factored in during site selection and planning. This also corroborates how steep the Clear Water Bay campus terrain is — the sloped ground the campus sits on has an elevation difference of roughly 25 metres^※. This significant vertical drop is the topographical root of the "lift-as-address" phenomenon discussed in Section III: the Fung Shui Ridge, the surrounding mountains, and the steep slope together shape the campus's natural barrier and dictate a circulation logic built around chains of lifts and escalators running vertically through the campus.

# II. The One-World Fountain: A Dialogue of Five Continents (Campus lore account)

Another symbolically minded installation on campus is the fountain sculpture commonly known as the One-World Fountain. According to a personal account^※, the fountain consists of five stones, each representing a continent; the "Asia" stone at the centre of the sculpture communicates with the others through continuously flowing water^※, symbolising "harmony between nature and people, and the synergy of technology and global communication"^※.

The design idea of "Asia at the centre, connected to the five continents by flowing water" echoes HKUST's international positioning of being "rooted in Asia, oriented toward the world" (see Association of East Asian Research Universities and Regional Alliances^※).

【Campus lore】 Various "fung shui" claims about campus fountains and water features (such as the fountain's orientation, or water flow bringing or dispersing fortune) circulate occasionally among students at Hong Kong universities, but this compilation has found no reliable source supporting any specific such claim, and so does not record them — only the design meaning of the One-World Fountain itself is recorded here. Readers who encounter such claims should treat them as campus hearsay.

# A companion water sculpture: the "Circle of Time" Red Bird Sundial

Another water sculpture near HKUST's entrance plaza has stronger official documentation behind it — the "Circle of Time" Red Bird Sundial Sculpture. It can be read alongside the One-World Fountain: both use flowing water as their formal language, but carry different symbolic meanings. According to HKUST's Campus Management Office, this sundial sits in a pool at the centre of the entrance plaza and was designed by the Irish-born, Perth-based sculptor couple Charles and Joan Walsh-Smith^※, and was installed on 8 October 1991^※ — the same year HKUST opened, making it one of the campus's earliest landmarks.

According to the university, the main sculpture stands 8.5 metres tall, with a relief wall depicting Chinese scientific achievements measuring 7.0 metres long and 1.5 metres high^※; it is both an artwork and a functioning sundial, telling time through the movement of sunlight and shadow^※. The designers describe it as "a contemplative 'Circle of Time,' an oasis within the busy matrix of the campus"^※; the water flowing around the sculpture symbolises "the flow of history," while the 39 Chinese scientific and technological inventions depicted in the relief tell a narrative of human creative achievement through changing light and shadow^※.

Reading the One-World Fountain (water connecting five continents, symbolising global collaboration) alongside the "Circle of Time" Red Bird Sundial (water symbolising the flow of history, engraved with ancient Chinese scientific and technological achievements), a dual narrative emerges in the entrance-area water features — "spatial globality" and "historical depth in time": one fountain faces the world, one sundial looks back at history, echoing HKUST's own positioning of being "rooted in China, oriented toward the world" at the level of landscape design.

# III. "Lift as Address": A Survival Guide to a Maze-Like Campus (Verified, with an official tool as corroboration)

For newcomers to HKUST, what usually causes the most trouble is not failing to find a place, but the fact that "the same place can be reached by several routes and several different lifts." According to a guide aimed at exchange students^※, the HKUST campus is laid out in an intricate way, with multiple lifts and corridors leading to the same area, making classrooms difficult to find^※.

The university's "official solution" to this is distinctive: using lift numbers as addresses. According to the guide, the university provides a digital map called "Path Advisor," in which lift numbers function as an "address" used to narrow down a classroom's location^※. HKUST does indeed have an official Path Advisor navigation tool^※ that corroborates this account.

In other words, at HKUST, "I'm at Lift XX" is a standard way to describe one's location — lift numbers have become the campus's common "house numbers." The root of this distinctive phenomenon lies in HKUST's campus being built into a hillside with an extreme vertical drop (see Landmarks and Public Art^※); floors at different elevations are connected mainly through chains of lifts and escalators, so "which lift you're near" locates you better than "which floor you're on."

【Campus lore/shared experience】 "Getting lost at HKUST" is close to a universal experience for new students and visitors alike, and "navigating by lift number" has become an unspoken piece of campus survival knowledge. While this phenomenon is difficult to document verbatim through "authoritative literature," it is described in an exchange-student guide and corroborated by the official Path Advisor tool, and can be treated as a traceable campus characteristic. This compilation records it here as part of the "maze-like campus" lore.

# Summary

These three pieces of lore each correspond to a different facet of the HKUST campus:

1. The Fung Shui Ridge — a science-and-technology university's unhurried embrace of traditional environmental knowledge, documented in an official library article, with the ridge itself already present in the architects' original design drawings;
2. The One-World Fountain and the Red Bird Sundial — two water sculptures, one built around "Asia at the centre, connecting five continents," the other around "flowing water symbolising the flow of history," echoing HKUST's international positioning and historical depth respectively;
3. Lift as address — the vertically intricate campus circulation, built into a hillside with roughly a 25-metre elevation difference, giving rise to the distinctive survival knowledge of "locating by lift number."

Taken together, these sketch a campus that is at once "scientific" and "mysterious," international and easy to get lost in.

Note: This article has labelled the source category (official/campus lore) for each item. Content touching on "fung shui" is treated here in observational, cultural terms; this compilation makes no claim regarding fortune, luck, or the supernatural. Campus-lore claims are clearly marked as such — readers should judge authenticity by the cited sources.