A whole new online approach to learning was originally forecast when desktop computers started to become affordable and commonplace.
People today predominantly have their own laptop, use PDAs, BlackBerrys, and camera phones, and interact with facebook and Twitter. However, the educational revolution hasn’t exactly happened in step with the technological leaps and bounds of the last two decades. The physical learning environment has remained stuck in the industrial age, with classrooms, laboratories and lecture halls dominating the campus learning environment.
Long-established campuses can’t be redesigned overnight, while new campuses are, for the most part, faithful to what Dr Kenn Fisher, Director of Education at Woods Bagot, calls the ‘egg-crate’ model. Study after study shows that despite the opportunities for long-distance, classroom-free learning options, studying is, quite simply, a social activity for most students. They prefer to learn in groups. Nonetheless, the need for an architectural rethink of campus design remains imperative.
Dr Fisher recently shared these thoughts and offered an insight into the need to rethink educational learning spaces.
Q. Do the concerns of creating shared or collaborative spaces, establishing learning communities and encouraging cross-disciplinary knowledge bases also exist in Asia as in the West?
In some parts of the world there is a very traditional view of what a university campus should look like, for example, in a green field, a retreat from the community, in a quiet, monastic environment where you reflect and think about research. But there’s another perspective which says we should engage with the community and have a relationship between industry and research, feeding back all the time. In China, there’s now been a radical shift towards ‘HOPSCA’ – hotels, offices, ecological parks, shopping centres, convention centres, and apartments. Almost every development is using that as its engine. The fact is that university campuses generate a lot of employment and revenue.
Q. Woods Bagot is involved in planning the business school for Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). How are you working to boost cross-disciplinary interaction?
I actually think that schools should be designed as libraries. People behave differently in libraries. We need to zone the areas in the library – noisy areas, quiet areas, places to have a cup of coffee – instead of separating theory from practice. There should be glass walls, so you can actually see people working and get a sense of a community of practice. Students today tend to learn in groups of two or three, gathered around a computer, often with music playing in the background.
The internet has helped to shift knowledge into the hands of students, so teachers are struggling from the position of being knowledge-imparters, to helping students understand and use their knowledge. This has to be reflected in design and architecture of educational institutions, where learning is done in a much more collaborative environment.
The broadband internet has opened up a completely different paradigm. Up until then, I struggled to get rid of the classroom. The internet has opened up such opportunities.
Q. What are some of your primary concerns going forward?
What I’m concerned about is that in the 21st century, we’ll have all these wonderful new buildings, but still 19th century classrooms where you wonder how much learning goes on in there. I’ve worked with students who hate school; a lot of them just want to do their 12 years and get out because they don’t like it. I now have two grandchildren, who are going to go to literally the same school I did when I was a kid. And that’s crazy.
The HKUST has its own unique identity [different to the old school design]. There are suspending study rooms and breakout spaces at the business school resembling large red Chinese lanterns. A stone clad lecture theatre serves as an anchor for the floating glass design and houses a landscape water entry-point.
Learn more about Hong Kong University of Science and Technology