YES to physical universities in an age of MOOCs, distance and online learning

Do we still need physical universities in an age of distance learning and online courses? A unanimous yes is the answer according to the authors of a new book, The Physical University, published this month, edited by Paul Temple from the Institute of Education. They make the case that place-based universities are still essential even while virtual universities expand and flourish across the globe. Demand for all forms of learning is growing internationally as the world population expands and as higher education participation rates rise, even in the poorest countries. So there is still a vast and expanding need for face-to-face, virtual, and blended learning offerings. Place-based research environments where new knowledge develops are also increasing. It is there that the new ideas taught by future teachers are generated.

Alexi Marmot's illuminating chapter "Managing the Campus" demonstrates how the student experience and university effectiveness are influenced by the design and management of the estate. This is essential reading for all those interested in university space, pedagogy, teaching and learning, estate management and design.

Details about the book are available here.

University of Oxford, Trinity College
© Creative Commons licence

 Illinois Institute of Technology, Crown Hall, by Mies van der Rohe
© Creative Commons licence

The Changing Nature of Academic Workspace

200,000 academic staff in UK universities typically work in office space that differs significantly from the rest of the country’s offices. Most academics work, surrounded by books and papers, in their own enclosed individual offices or in small group offices.  By contrast, the majority of office-based employees in the rest of the economy work in open offices shared with many other people, and very few books or files. Is this difference essentially due to the special nature of academic work? Do academics really need individual offices, or should they use shared offices like most other office workers?

This was hotly debated at a recent seminar hosted by AMA Alexi Marmot Associates attended by around 30 academics and estates professionals from sixteen UK universities, where issues of status, academics wish to personalise their workspace and to store many books and papers, the importance of a sense of belonging, the influence of changing student requirements, the role of interdisciplinary, and the importance of consultation when changing academic workspace were discussed, among several other topics. 

A report which summarises the discussion is now available here. 

AMA assists Universities to develop Masterplans

Masterplans are based on many layers of information and provide a strategic plan to guide future development.  For a university estate, key information to help mix creative, 'blue sky' ideas about what  the future holds, with realism about what will have to be done in the next year or two, lies in precisely what is happening in current buildings.  A thorough analysis of how buildings are used currently, and for what provides the evidence on which to base plans for the future.

AMA is assisting a number of universities by collecting  data of various different sorts.  Space utilisation information can help indicate whether centralising  'ownership' of space  will promote  more efficient utilisation and will assist the Estates department in providing the 'right space' at the right time in the right place. Complex spaces, such as labs, creative workshops or studios need more sophisticated data collection and analysis to take account of their specific features. For example, there are significant fluctuations in the timing which which some of these spaces are needed.

In some cases users may need several different types of space that cannot be occupied at the same time and yet in some instances cannot be shared with others to achieve good utilisation levels: experimental equipment in labs, half finished garments in a fashion workshop, cannot always be moved out of the way while the researcher or the designer is engaged in a different aspect of their work in a different location.

Collecting good evidence about what exists is the start of the necessary process for finding out why and whether it can beneficially be changed. More information means that master planners can make more informed predictions about future requirements for higher education in the 21st century, and  ensure that their buildings will be used well.  Knowledge is power.

Michigan State University's 1926 masterplan © Wikimedia Commons license