Another classroom in the round at the Bora Architects–designed Learning Innovation Center at Oregon State University
Technology today shapes students’ everyday experiences in ways previous generations never imagined possible. Yet higher education hasn’t kept pace. “Universities are the second-oldest continuously operating institution in the Western world, after the Vatican. It’s also the slowest to change,” according to Jon Dorbolo, a professor and associate director of technology across the curriculum at Oregon State University (OSU), and a panelist at a recent panel discussion.
As college enrollment declines for the sixth year in a row, how do institutions of higher learning race to catch up with the expectations of an ever more tech-savvy student body? On May 9, in the Portland offices of Bora Architects, Metropolis’s director of design innovation Susan S. Szenasy moderated a Think Tank discussion of the ways universities are shaping the future of learning through innovation and design, despite their historical “slowness.”
Questions that reframe the notion of education are being asked—and architects and institutions are responding. “There has to be a willingness to envision a different paradigm for teaching. We’re creating spaces to experiment with new ways of teaching and new environments to teach in,” said Michael Ingley, a principal at Bora. “Will we even be teaching 600-person lectures in 20 years? Let’s not build a dinosaur.”
Instead, Bora is creating flexible spaces like the Learning Innovation Center at OSU. With its radical lecture hall in the round, students look at each other, rather than at the backs of heads, and eight linked projectors allow for a 360-degree screen. To ensure easy proximity to professors, the design allows teachers to ring the room, easily reaching any student in a few steps, iPad in hand.
Facilitating interaction through dynamic environments is also key. As Amy Donohue, Bora principal said, “We work on a lot of campuses, and many of them are saying they need more active, engaged learning.” The new Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) at the University of Washington has interdisciplinary masters programs, where students develop real-world technology and innovative design thinking—and the space had to meet the curricular needs. The three-story building is thus centered around a makerspace core, where students do hands-on activities using tools like laser cutters and sewing machines. Overlapping zones, instead of doors, connect spaces. All of which is intended “to break down barriers between students and between spaces,” says Donohue, as well as to engage students.