Re-shaping Learning - the conference (and the book)

The Re-Shaping Learning conference at the University of Brighton in July 2010 aimed to bring together the best researchers around Learning Spaces - who are usually separated because they work across the different disciplines of educational theory, design teaching, architecture and estates management. One of the things we have been interested in is how to make the best work more easily accessible (since it is scattered across many subjects and locations). So it is great news that Sense want to publish a book collection for us.

The conference was also one of the last events of CETLD, at the end of its five  year life, and - as with the other CETLs - it  is only now that some crucial emerging themes are becoming clear. A key concern of the conference was to widen debate about Learning Spaces beyond building some new innovative informal learning spaces. Many contributors agreed that it also urgently needs to include theoretical research and development, cross-disciplinary critical debate, improved methodologies for designing and evaluating spaces and a much more focussed engagement with the 'big' issues of learning as a social and spatial practice; that is, both unravelling the assumptions about where, how, why and for whom different forms of education are patterned in space and time, and how these might be better organised.

Talking spaces

Just back from the Learning Landscapes conference at Queen Mary's College London, which was to launch their final HEFCE-funded report and tools. I gave a paper (called "where is the theory?") and also listened to an interesting and varied range of other speakers. Very full day - 10 speakers in total - so not much audience participation possible, but good in that the speakers were selected to open up debate, rather than merely describe the project report.

Left with a mixture of optimism about the vital potential of bringing together estate managers, architects and educationalists perspectives on learning spaces; and frustrated that we still have - despite the work of the groups like Learning Landscapes at the University of Lincoln - very few approaches or methods which offer a firm purchase on relationships between architectural design, teaching and learning encounters, and space/resource development and management. Or rather we have several, but which are being generated piecemeal across the sector, from across both academic and commercial locations.

So we are left to choose between - if we can even find the work - say, the LL approach based on a better understanding of the history of universities as a building type, or (from the Institute of Education in London) Paul Temple's ideas about thinking 'place' rather than 'space'; or even my own argument which is that we need to build better conceptual frameworks and research methods, preferrably on the best contemporary theoretical work across architecture, education and the social sciences.... the core argument behind the Towards Creative Learning Spaces book.

Never enough space!

As another academic year begins, I am aware yet again of that tension between feeling there is simply not enough space - particularly in studios where we still still wish for a model of one desk per student where they can work whenever they want - and knowing that in programming and occupancy terms, our buildings will feel relatively empty; that actual occupancy rates will be low compared to, say, offices.

And I still feel we should be able to design our way out of this problem, just can't work out how!

Helpfully, the University of Lincoln's Centre for Educational Research and Development is running a research project (in collaboration with DEGW) called Learning Landscapes "looking at the ways in which academics work with colleagues in Estates to develop and manage innovation in the design of teaching and learning spaces in Higher Education."

Space and sustainability

Last week the government unveiled their plans to reduce greenhouse admissions in the UK by 34%. Universities are already looking at how to reduce carbon and how to embed sustainability across what they do: in the curriculum, in estates planning and management and through related activities (for example, the University of Brighton recently won funding for as part of the edible campus network). This is not just altruism - the government has also said that from 2011, some of the funding that institutions receive will be linked to how well they reduce carbon emissions.

So, sustainability is becoming increasing interlocked with learning spaces. As the Guardian reported recently (Let's have a heated debate July 21 2009), this is not just about the physical issues of building and energy costs - although these are crucially important - but also about the next generation of students. The article quotes Iain Patton, executive director of Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges, saying " No matter how large a university carbon footprint is, it is nothing compared to the impact of its graduates when they leave and enter homes and workplaces. If we miss this, we really do miss the larger picture. When at university, we have the responsibility to ensure learners are exposed to knowledge and values which they can take on with them as informed, responsible citizens. Every aspect of our campuses, buildings, teaching and leadership must be oriented to achieve this."

Image: Agnes Denes, Wheatfield – A Confrontation, 1982. Two acres of wheat planted and harvested in Battery Park Landfill, downtown Manhattan. Commissioned by Public Art Fund, New York City. Photo: Agnes Denes - currently on show as part of Radical Nature exhibition, Barbican, London.

A creative tension?

One of the comments at the end of UAL's Making Space conference concerned an 'elephant in the room' - the tensions between the desires and needs of art and design tutors/students and the realities of costs and scarce resources.

This tension reveals itself in many ways; in the tendency for estates managers and academics to distrust each other; in the perpetual gap between perceptions that there is never enough space (tutors) and that - at around 20- 25% - occupancy rates are too low (estates); in the problems of rooms being booked and then not used; and in arguments over dedicated spaces for courses, or one-studio space-per-student, or the amount and type of academic offices.

I joined a very interesting workshop run by Sian Kilner, who has been centrally involved in the new Space Management Group (SMG) guidance on planning affordable - and sustainable educational buildings. She has been exploring methods beyond simple space-per-student norms which aim instead to make more transparent and open for debate the intersecting effects of types of space, timetabling, activities and student numbers on costs.

We ended up having a discussion about problems of averages and peakloads. For me, educational courses are more like the bus system than a standard office - there are inherently peaks and troughs through the semester cycle, particularly in the art and design subjects. Another delegate said we have to think about studio space as a service, as something that needs to be offered even if it is not used all the time. (This is much better explained by Han herself on her blog http://evocativethings.blogspot.com/.) I came away thinking that if art and design tutors want to argue their case better, we have to look at methods for space planning which are more complex (that is, can better model the patterns through the academic cycle), but of course not so complex that they are ineffective predictors; and we have to be able to describe more precisely the space/time patterns of learning in art and design in HE to estates and facilities managers.

Image from installation in courtyard, Chelsea College of Art and Design, UAL. Millbank, London

Space costs!

One of the most interesting things about the Explore it! toolkit launch at the University of Dundee (see below) was how many estates and facilities managers were there, keen on finding out how to generate more innovative policies and approaches to learning spaces development and design. Estates people and academics can find it all to easy to stereotype each other: teachers are perceived as unwilling to shift from their existing practices (single offices, course or department 'owned' spaces, last minute planning and and 'just-in-time' room-booking) whilst estates managers are seen as obsessed with space utilisation figures and cost-saving, un-interested in the demands of teaching and learning.

The truth is, space costs - and with increasing pressure on university finances, we all need to be collaborating on how to creatively think/procure/design/implement/manage space better. This is about more than better briefing (although of course that helps too). We also need to develop better understandings of the relationships between material space and the teaching and learning practices which take place in it. It is only when we know more about what actually happens that we can decide priorities and explore what might change. And I should mention that, to date, it has been the estates and facilities management team at the university who have been talking about this to me ( and about the potential to be more adventurous), not academics....