Ian Taylor - Future Campus

Tom Kvan

Rupert Cook and Philip E. Ogden

Jonas Nordquist

Heidi Corbet, Ian Caldwell and Ian Goodfellow with Michael Riebel and Oliver Milton

Gabriel Aeppli

Fiona Duggan

Andy Ford

Ian Taylor

Julian Robinson

Joanna Eley

Kenn Fisher

Mike Entwisle

Tom Kvan

Jonas Nordquist

Eleanor Magennis

Julian Robinson

Universities exist both to create and to disseminate knowledge, playing a major role in innovation and in the transmission of ideas from one generation to another. The modern university takes many forms, with considerable contrasts in history, size and location, and in the balance between teaching, learning and research. Universities play a major role within their local communities in education, in their contribution to the economy and in generating a sense of pride and engagement. The built environment can include museums and art galleries, theatres and concert halls, as well as research laboratories, libraries and lecture halls. Most institutions have national significance and a large number both operate and compete at an international level.

The central argument of this book is that the physical space of the university and the quality of design of that space matter. They matter for the student experience of teaching and learning, for the effective pursuit of research and for institutional reputation. The present built environment of most universities shows the extent of the challenge of planning space effectively: heroic successes sit alongside occasional failures, both aesthetic and functional. The purpose of this book is to try to show:

• why good design matters
• how best it can be encouraged and procured, and
• how experience can be shared.

A number of themes emerge as particularly important.

First, although most universities have evolved into a mix of architectural styles and approaches as they have expanded, most do have a legacy of previous, often ambitious, masterplans. The best of these, and not least some of the oldest, reflect a clear conception of what a university is for, both pedagogically and socially. This book shows how masterplanning remains relevant to the modern university and, in a climate of often rapid change and growth, how difficult it can be to make a masterplan supple enough to endure.

Second, flexibility and sustainability need to be built in to projects as approaches to research and teaching evolve. This might involve creating new, or adapting existing, space to suit large, often collaborative, scientific research projects of international impact; creating specific spaces for expanding disciplines, such as Drama or Film Studies, and understanding how the modern student learns in spaces where the pedagogical and the social overlap and sustain each other. The specific issue of adapting historic buildings of high quality is implicit in a number of chapters in this book. Central also to the provision of space for the modern university is an understanding of the virtual world and of the scrambling of distinctions between home and institutional spaces for discovery and learning. A small but important aspect here is the continuing role of the university to provide residential accommodation and how this fits into a modern conception of higher education.

Third, is the aesthetic where universities have long sought to create buildings that enhance their reputation. Many of the leading architects in each generation, and perhaps most of all today, have been involved in university design, often producing striking and innovative buildings.

Finally, the book draws out some of the nuts and bolts issues of ensuring adequate budgets, value for money and utility, including methodologies for learning from buildings in use. Universities in many countries have expanded greatly over recent decades, with massive investment in the physical infrastructure.

This volume exemplifies the themes above, and others, by drawing on a wide range of case studies from different higher education systems. It also represents a very welcome collaboration between the Higher Education Design Quality Forum (HEDQF) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and I would like to thank the latter on behalf of the members of the former for helping us to bring the book to fruition. Particular thanks are also due to Ian Taylor and his colleagues for coordinating this volume with such skill, care and good humour. I hope it proves an enjoyable, informative and provocative read.

Professor Philip E. Ogden
Queen Mary University of London
Chair, Higher Education Design Quality Forum
June 2016