Nova School of Business & Economics opens
Lectures began in September at the Nova School of Business & Economics which is being built right by the beach in Carcevelos near Lisbon.
The former University Nova de Lisboa Faculty of Economy is moving and will be housed in a brand new purpose-built and state-of-the-art campus to house one of Europe’s best business and economics schools.
Rechristened the Nova School of Business and Economics (SBE), which at the start of September welcomed its first group of 740 students to start lectures on the campus that had been built from scratch in Carcevelos between Lisbon and Cascais.
According to Faculty Director Daniel Traça, the choice of the site which he calls “iconic” was made almost a decade ago when the department decided to move from its buildings in the former Jesuits College in Campolide, Lisbon because “we just didn’t have the space to grow there.”
Cascais Town Council was decisive in the move by offering a 83,000m2 plot of land right by Carcevelos beach which until then was virgin land that had never been built on. The planning permission rights were handed to the private Nova SBE Foundation which was set up specifically for the project.
The foundation had powers to receive private donations that have financed the entire construction of the project whose costs are estimated to be around €50 million.
“We think that it makes sense to have a university in an iconic location that shows what our country is famous for: sea and beach, but which to these assets the Business and Economics school creates added value” says Daniel Traça.
Since it was announced that the business school would move from Campolide to Carcevelos in 2012, the Nova SBE along with Carcevelos have been branded and marketed as a kind of European answer to California.
“This school is Portuguese, made by Portuguese, financed by Portuguese companies and conceived as a Portuguese university with lecturers who are, for the most part, Portuguese and designed by an architect who is Portuguese who has created a campus which is undoubtedly one of the most interesting in the world,” says Traça.
The campus will also feature halls of residence with 122 rooms and which have been concessioned out to the private Austrian firm Milestone at costs of between €545 and €695 per month.
Within the university all the lecture rooms including the central auditorium bear the name of an investor who donated towards the campus such as Jerónimo Martins (the supermarket magnate) and Teresa and Alexandre Soares dos Santos.
One of the defining concepts of the interior spaces is one of open plan freedom which aims to enable both lecturers and students to enjoy a sense of maximum freedom and reflection.
“In a fast-moving world which is constantly changing, we want people to reflect about themselves and find their identity as well as finding the courage to ask the questions that no one asks” explains Traça.
