How Campus Design Relates to Corporate Learning

Learning happens everywhere on campus. But what about the corporate campus? Can the design of learning spaces at the university teach the corporation something? Tracy Fouchea of Herman Miller thinks so. She makes the point in a recent article in Chief Learning Officer. One key, she says, is designing in the ability to change a space at will to meet all the different ways learning can happen.

“If you think about corporate learning spaces, some of them may be used only for formal learning or when they’re not being used for formal learning, it’s first come, first served or scheduled opportunities to use the space,” Fouchea said. “If you can make it so that it’s adaptable and multi-use, it can take on many other leads within an organization.”

More proof of the similarities between the design of learning spaces on corporate and educational campuses can be seen in places like the Innovation Park. It’s designed to jump-start early-stage companies. The facility itself is collaborative and flexible so it can respond to the diverse needs of short-term clients. Not unlike the situation for spaces on corporate campuses.

Student Body, Student Mind, and the Future of the Campus

Two print ads for the United Negro College Fund by Harry Webber.

You know the long-running public service ad for the UNCF. A mind is, indeed, a terrible thing to waste. To make sure that doesn’t happen, colleges and universities are trying to figure out just what’s going on in those young minds. The survival of higher ed, or at least its future health, depends on it.

The group known as Millennials is already having an impact on where and how learning happens on campus. That, in turn, is causing schools to reexamine the ways physical space can foster this trend toward learning anytime and anywhere. The key is to use space to engage this population, with amenities to enhance learning and classroom and lab designs that are as adaptable and flexible as the students are.

But what of the next group that follows the Millennials? They’ll likely direct their own learning. The trend toward eschewing traditional careers will only accelerate. More of future students will turn their passion into a profession. The Internet will continue to affect learning as ways of imparting knowledge become increasingly free, global, individual, and socially organized.

Even as learning gets more virtual, however, there will still be the need for physical places where people get together to learn. Chances are these spaces will need to be social and collaborative settings that assume the movement of people and furniture to allow for variety. They’ll need to include changing focal points, typically enabled by technology on demand. And visual stimulation, such as color, texture, and reference to nature, will be required to enhance cognitive skills.

The good thing about the changes coming to a campus near your child is that schools have new incentive to evolve the educational experience. Everyone will benefit from that, and certainly all those young minds ready to change their world.

“Where’s Your Hub?” Students Show Us Their Answers

We think good design requires good research. On campus, that means talking—and listening—to everyone, especially students. Our goal is to capture the voice of the students, to understand how and why they use a specific type of space on campus.

To hear their voices, we recently sponsored our second annual student video contest. We asked them to show us their “hubs,” those places where they go to connect, recharge, study, and socialize.

Congratulations to first, second, and third place winners Fiona Green, Keaton Davis, and Jesse Hendrickson. Their videos, along with all the submissions, uncovered some common themes. Hubs can be found anywhere on campus. Wherever the hub, students want the physical surrounding of their hubs to be comfortable. That includes comfortable furniture as well as acoustical comfort. Hubs were physical places in all their examples except for one.

This contest provided an engaging way for us to capture student insights. Their views are sure to help campus leadership and facility planners think about the changing needs of students and how higher education facilities can respond to them.

On Campus, Circles of Exchange Foster Innovation

Learning in higher education is becoming less a practice in memorization and regurgitation, and more an active, collaborative, and social process. As a result, a new way of viewing university and college campuses is emerging.

Driven by technology and social networks, the current generation of learners is creating an academic experience that is different than even a few years ago. “Circles of exchange” begins to explain this trend. Campuses are increasingly becoming large networks made up of individual student networks. As students connect with one another, the flow and diversity of information is strengthened, more ideas are shared, more knowledge is developed, and the potential for innovation increases.

The physical environment has a role in this. A thoughtfully designed learning space can be place for students to gather, collaborate, socialize, and exchange ideas. The creation of these spaces requires a better understanding of how and why people learn, the effect of ever greater sources of information, opportunities to customize learning experiences, and anticipation and accommodation of technological change. When understanding about these elements is brought to the design process, the campus will better support the needs of students.

Photo: Lure/Forest by Beili Liu

Is It Still a Library?

“I go to the library to create information.”

Right now, you won’t hear many college students uttering that sentence, but you will soon. That’s one of the conclusions of a panel of experts Herman Miller brought together to talk about the future of academic libraries.

So why do academic libraries have to foster creating—not just seeking—information? Because today’s students are demanding it. They want their experience of the library—indeed every space on campus—to be one of active, collaborative learning.

When learning is active and collaborative—and happens in adaptive spaces—it brings out the creativity in students. They engage at a deep level. And they become creators of information rather than just passive receivers.

Photo courtesy of Duke University

Children + Books = Possibilities

As part of the Herman Miller Education team’s recent book drive, our dealership, Workplace Resource Southern California, collected books for some very deserving children.

After collecting the books, we delivered two Herman Miller Meridian red bookcases to the volunteer organization School on Wheels. The bookcases arrived full of children’s books ranging from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to Harry Potter.

The books were barely out of the boxes before the kids started chattering in anticipation. They chose their favorite book, flipped through pages, shared stories, and pointed out the funny and bizarre pictures. Then silence filled the room as the stories engulfed them. The eagerness in these young faces was enough to evoke a single word – awesome!

School on Wheels’ volunteers tutor homeless children, give them school supplies and backpacks, help them file necessary paperwork, and even offer each child a dedicated phone number so the child can meet the school board’s requirements for enrollment. The organization is determined to end the cycle of poverty by “shrinking the gap in their education and by providing them with the highest level of education possible.”

Herman Miller collected almost 8,700 books in its national book drive. If you would like to make a book donation, check out Better World Books for more information.

Images courtesy of Juan Luis Garcia

Stormy With a Chance of Collaboration

What better way to explore the question of collaboration than by collaborating? I recently participated in a Design Storm with 20 students from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, as they tackled this real-world issue over a period of two and half days.

For Herman Miller, this was an opportunity to ask the next generation of designers about the workplace, about collaboration, and about how they envision the two melding in the future.

Brainstorming, discussion, sketching, and critique; round after round, the students worked through their ideas toward a final concept. The atmosphere was awesome. The results were even better, ranging from the intangible “office as a second skin” and “implicit boundaries” to the tangible “mobile work pods.”

The experience left us wishing we could replicate that spark back at the office. We value our partnerships with universities and colleges of all kinds; they provide us a fresh perspective, all while connecting with future innovators. Who better to create the future with?

Young Innovators, Characteristics that Encourage Creativity

What was your college experience like? Ramen noodles for breakfast; Chock-a-block lecture halls; No class on Fridays. Am I alone here?

Well, some students are demanding more of their education and universities are stepping up, providing them an opportunity to work outside the traditional parameters of academia. Innovation centers give interdisciplinary teams of students a chance to tackle a project in which they design, fabricate, and test a prototype that solves a particular problem; sometimes in conjunction with for-profit companies.

No specified number of hours, no professor at a podium, no classroom—just a deadline and a problem to be solved. Which raises a problem: Your average classroom is not the highly flexible, dynamic space that will stimulate, support, and contribute to success of the young innovator. But, what is?

Looking to answer this question, Herman Miller convened a Leadership Roundtable to explore the innovation process and develop characteristics of creative spaces. Comprised of university innovation center leaders, national associations tracking educational innovation, and architects and designers, the group focused on several questions:

• What are the characteristics of an innovator?

• What are the barriers to creativity and innovation on campus?

• What attributes of creative environments that make them unique and supportive of the innovative mind?

The answers to these questions all touched on the type of space needed. Innovation centers require spaces that satisfy both the physical and psychological components of innovation. They have to be an ecosystem in which ideas can grow uniquely with each project.

Pictured: Prasad Boradkar, Director of InnovationSpace (a transdisciplinary laboratory at ASU).

Herman Miller’s Learning Spaces Research Pilot Program Makes the Grade

Recently, North Central College featured the work they are doing in partnership with Herman Miller and Widmer Interiors. Nine professors and their students are participating in the Learning Spaces Research Pilot program that incorporates the latest thinking in teaching spaces.

Whether it is the unique space compared to other classrooms on campus, the adaptable furnishings and flexible configurations, or the freedom to use technology unconfined, it has the campus talking.

Photo courtesy of North Central College

Explore Aging in Place at the ‘Smart House’ Exhibition

Many of us have lived this story: a parent or other loved ones who want nothing more than to stay in their own home as they age. The issue is gaining attention because the first 70 million Baby Boomers hit 65 years old in 2011. Their home-related needs will have a significant impact on home and product design.

That impact is explored in an exhibition called “Smart House, Livable Community, Your Future” at the University of Minnesota’s Goldstein Museum of Design in St. Paul. It will be on display until May 22, 2011. The exhibition explores the housing trend of “aging in place,” which allows people to stay in their home by using products with adaptive technologies and by making simple adjustments to their living environment.

Featured in the exhibition is Mobilegs, from Mobi, an innovative mobility device developer in Minneapolis. Mobilegs is a breakthrough in crutch design that makes it easier, safer, and more comfortable to get around. It’s designed by Jeff Weber of Studio Weber + Associates. He also designed Herman Miller’s Embody chairs, Caper chairs, and Envelop desk, which are among the products featured in the Smart House as well.
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