Strategies and Tools from the LSC and From the Field

Why Space Matters to Creativity

When we walk into a space, we ask and determine what we can do in that space: What is acceptable? What is allowable? What can happen here and what cannot? What should happen here? We scan the environment, which in its design/structure/furniture helps us produce inferences that allow us to come to provisional answers to […]

From the LSC Roundtables – Descriptors of Spaces that Work

PROCESS/Strategies: A Guide for Adapting a Job-Description Roundtable The LSC Roadmap: PROCESS A Strategy for Planners: Creating a Shared Vision of 21st Century Learning Spaces and Places for 21st Century Learners PROCESS—Strategy: What Keeps You Up at Night When Thinking About Learning Spaces?

A Conversation with Academics and Architects at WPI: A Job Description of a Space for Project-based Learning

This June 2018 LSC Roundtable focused on a specific pedagogical approach—project-based learning—and on the spatial characteristics and affordances important to the success of that pedagogy. The Roundtable began with participants drawing and describing their mental image of the ideal space for PBL. This was followed by conversations between individuals and teams–about the characteristics of spaces […]

A Conversation with Academics and Architects at Stanford University: A Job Description for a 21st Century Classroom for 21st Century Learners

Understanding what a space should be, should become, how it enables the desired experiences of those who use such spaces now and into the future is the fundamental responsibility of those who plan, use, and assess spaces and places for learning—all stakeholders in the institutional future. This understanding of how spaces matter to the experience […]

Job Description for a Classroom

The Yardstick: A New Metaphor for the Process of Planning

Our team began thinking about the dichotomy of approaches to planning learning spaces. One group is concerned about the educational mission and the other about the design work. These are two different perspectives on the process of planning. Architects are thinking about the start of the design process, the solution at the end, and the […]

Thinking Metaphorically about Spaces for Learning

We began with an overarching discussion about student-centered, student-focused, student-driven learning spaces. We were fluid about the particular spaces we were thinking about: a lecture hall, lab, makerspace, whatever. Our feeling was that the ideas we were discussing spanned many different kinds of learning and learning spaces, from libraries to spaces for career counseling, and […]

Roadmap: Process