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JCU’ s Education Central
Modern love
University environments today are increasingly designed to allow students to develop their own relationships with them.
By Andrew Bracey
We might often think of universities as large, prestigious institutions steeped in tradition – menacing monolithic sandstone architecture projecting the authority they wield whilst highlighting how lucky their students must be just to be allowed to study within their hallowed walls.
However, in what appears to be a growing trend, modern campus design is increasingly working to reflect not only the desires and personality of the millennial generation students it now seeks to attract but also of the wider communities amongst which universities exist.
Take for example James Cook University’ s Education Central, opened last year.
Its layout is more reminiscent of an Apple store than the grey, sterile student administration buildings that linger in the minds of almost anyone who graduated from an Australian university prior to the turn of the century.
Of course, that’ s just the way it was intended. But design and architecture critics have been falling over each other in their praise of the project’ s aim of breaking the mould. In the last 18 months, Education Central – designed by Queensland firm Wilson Architects – has garnered five awards, including recognition from the Australian Institute of Architects and most recently the Council of Educational Facility Planners International.
MOVEABLE WALLS AND COLLABORATION The dean of JCU’ s College of Arts, Society and Education, professor Nola Alloway, was one of the driving forces behind the project. She says the aim was to create a“ lighthouse to the university community and beyond”.
“ Within the space of one year, Education Central … [ has
challenged ] the way the whole of the university is thinking about how we teach students, accommodate their diverse learning styles, build a sense of community amongst learners, capitalise on technological advances in delivery modes and ensure that students are truly at the heart of our enterprise,” Alloway recently wrote.
As she explained, the project was heavily influenced by an eyeopening trip she took to a conference in Finland – the subject of which was education buildings.
“ I got even more excited about the prospect of not just putting bricks and mortar together but of coming back and doing something that was about pedagogical space and not just space for students to inhabit,” she says.“ So I talked to senior management about it and showed them images of what we have and what we had and what we could have and then what we really wanted.
“ We had to make sure we shaped up the best of pedagogical practice with our teachers – the vice-chancellor … said we should go ahead with it.”
Despite unsuccessful applications for Commonwealth education infrastructure fund grants, the project was able to be financed – in part by combining the works budgets of Alloway’ s own department with that of student services. Instead of two smaller and less ambitious projects, Education Central was born.
The result is a building with a range of open light spaces and moveable walls that takes its inspiration from innovative examples of best practice already being trialled or used by world-leading institutions.
“ One of the things we have is the TEAL room – or our technology enhanced active learning room- that’ s a direct swipe from [ Massachusetts Institute of Technology ] in Boston,” Alloway
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