Higher ed design, beyond connectivity

Designing Colleges For More Than Just Connectivity – about the results of Gensler research into the design of Campus 3.0, the step beyond a totally wired campus.  A survey of 250 students revealed a need for far more possibilities for collaboration, for inspirational spaces, and for quiet study spaces.

A mix of classrooms, open team-based spaces, and social spaces needs to be interwoven to give students the dynamic learning environments they told us are missing from their campus experience.  …

Campus 3.0 is sensitive. It remembers the human side of connectedness. And this ties to probably the most surprising finding in our survey: the fact that students ranked pen and paper as the study tools they used most often on campus, followed closely by and in tandem with the laptop and Internet.  …

Imagine the campus library reinvented as a complement of reading rooms–from large to intimate–with a strategically located “genius bar” (a la Apple) making research librarians accessible without disturbing the prevailing quiet. …

Quiet space to work alone, and, in particular, the lack of enough of it on campus, was an issue for the students we surveyed. More than 70% of students we questioned said they prefer to work alone as opposed to in a group.

Nice Gensler infographic included.  Here’s the full Gensler report:  Changing Course. Connecting campus design to a new kind of student.