Six steps for future-
proofed learning spaces.
A working method for staff planning or refurbishing a teaching, study or informal space. Use alongside the Seven Principles.
Identify constraints and opportunities, including student needs.
Consider budget, institutional regulations, staff sensitivities about space use, and — critically — student needs and wishes. Run focus groups. Assume you don't know what students want until you've asked them.
Research other good-practice frameworks and solutions.
ALTC resources, institutional websites, published findings in journals and books. Visits — virtual or physical — to exemplar learning spaces are useful. Don't design in a vacuum.
Invite speakers who have travelled the road before you.
Your research should point to the major players in the field. Bring them in. This builds an informed group of participants and surfaces constraints you hadn't considered. Good invitees include AV and Buildings & Grounds staff, student leaders, educational designers, innovative teachers, Teaching and Learning managers, and heads of departments.
Run concept and development workshops with student facilitation.
Now you have a sense of the potential and what other institutions have done. Start to explore your own needs. What sorts of spaces are required? What kinds of learning experience are planned? What does the climate, the culture, and the institutional structure require or allow?
Collate your findings and plan your response.
Bring it all together: what sort of space will fit the bill? How will you resource the production? Who will do the unglamorous work?
Design and implement. Then launch.
Draw up layouts. Build in the Seven Principles. Plan power, technology, social needs, furniture, refurbishment, reconfigurability, access and security. Order fittings, organise the refurbishment. Launch the space — and plan to revisit it in 12 months.
Withhold 15% of the building budget.
One of the earliest findings from the reference group: set aside roughly 15% of the capital budget to modify and adjust the space after construction. The things that only become obvious once students are in the room are always worth spending money on.