on campus
Master the metamorphosis
A look at the design plans of the world’ s top universities shows evolving trends in integration and technology to keep up with a dynamic cohort. By Adam Davies
The higher education sector is under increasing financial, political and environmental pressures, at a time when technology and learning models are changing rapidly.
The start of a new year provides an opportunity for reflection and strategy development for the 12 months ahead. Of critical importance is a university’ s built and land assets – its campus. In today’ s competitive environment, a university’ s offer in the market is being measured against the quality of its social and cultural facilities, its place in the city and its connectedness, and the degree to which it contributes to business outcomes and quality of life for students, staff and community.
In 2012, whilst preparing a brief for University of Queensland’ s new master plan, HASSELL completed a review of the Go8 universities, before extending the study to include an international sample of 18 universities, 14 of which were selected from the top 50 of the 2012 Jiang Tao Academic Ranking of World Universities.
The aim was to understand the drivers and themes that are influencing the world’ s top universities and how they relate to the Australian experience. The review of these publicly available master plans provided us with a global snapshot of campus development and the sector’ s response to the seismic shifts caused by the global financial crisis( placing greater pressure on assets from increased student demand and cuts to spending), the development of MOOCS and the exponential take-up of mobile, tablet and other technologies.
What we have consistently found, both internationally and among the Group of Eight are: changing models for teaching, learning and research that are influencing the way spaces are configured for collaboration and socialisation; the rise of technology as an enabling tool; growth and changes in student characteristics; and greater environmental awareness.
Our reviews highlighted some emerging trends:
Curriculum and research models Growth in, and the globalisation of, research are major drivers of change, as evidenced by the shifting form and function of research buildings, the interdisciplinary and agile nature of many research teams, and the growing emphasis on co-location with industry partners. The subtle difference between the international and domestic master plans appears to be that the Australian model is shifting to more post-graduate education, whereas the focus internationally is on incorporating research into undergraduate models.
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