SCHOMS AUDE Workshops

The two-day workshop program aims to challenge the participants’ understanding of the project process to design and develop new generation learning environments in higher education. Typically, learning environment projects in higher education require the input of various professional stakeholders – estates staff, project managers, audio-visual experts, architects and other spatial designers, academics, and institutional managers who can inadvertently work against each other’s interests and to the project’s detriment.

Successful projects require shared understandings of the project’s objectives and a common vocabulary which conveys core ideas and values underpinning the collective effort. But they also require a more innovative, exploratory process which questions the identity of the project ‘client’, the composition of the project ‘brief’ and how ‘design’ is undertaken.

Please note: Attendance at Day 1 is a prerequisite for Day 2 of the program.

Day 1 of the program – ‘Toward a Shared Vision and Language’ - will:

• Expose the contrasting professional perspectives that key stakeholders bring to the project
• Establish the importance of articulating a common understanding of the project ‘client’, the project ‘brief’, and the ‘design process’.
• Address a typical project brief and explore the response of key stakeholders
• Explore an innovative approach to creating an inclusive design process

Day 2 – ‘Developing a Tool to Promote Insight of Exemplary Projects’ - focuses on the need to meet the growing national and international interest in completed learning environment projects as a source to inform and guide subsequent developments across the higher education sector. Presently much effort and cost is expended with staff seeking, and travelling to, projects in order to experience new learning environments and meet with key stakeholders.

This stage of the workshop program deals with the creation of a project template for showcasing exemplary projects in order to communicate the development process, the impact of the facility and the experience of users. The emphasis will be on creating a ‘story’ which conveys the essence of the project and provides critical information for interested stakeholders to apply to their own projects. Through their involvement in a series of activities, the workshop participants will help form the project template which will be created as an outcome of the workshop.

Day 2 of the program will:

• Review recent learning space case study reports to identify the essential information that needs to be communicated to interested external stakeholders
• Map a draft template to effectively showcase exemplary learning environment projects and the ‘stories’ they have to tell to the higher education sector
• Consider the benefit of adopting a phenomenological perspective addressing the user’s experience of the physical environment

This event is free of charge for SCHOMS/AUDE institutional members. The cost to non members is £250. For more details, and to make a booking,