Glasgow Caledonian University, The Saltire Centre

Background & Context

SALTIRE: a building that provides Services for our students, Active approaches to Learning and Teaching, a 21st century way of managing our Information, the repository of our Research collections, and Engaging our students.

The Saltire is also the name of the Scottish flag. Also known as the St Andrew's Cross. The Saltire is pictured at the centre of the University's crest. An appropriate name for a campus hub; the social, intellectual, and cultural heart of the campus.

The brief developed to be about creating a building that offered a non- institutional important third place; a key place that people want to come to. With the increasing flexibility of delivery it would have a significant role in encouraging and supporting the sociality of learning, and generally add to the value of the student's experience of life as part of a University. Key to this is encouraging departments to make their work more visible by having events and exhibitions in the Saltire Centre.

The building design incorporates the understanding of the brief from a whole range of professionals who worked on the project: architects, interior designers, graphic designers, librarians, student support services, estates strategists, as well as those leading learning and teaching in the University during the build and design period.

The Saltire Centre builds on the success of the Learning Café which already existed in the university's previous library and information centre.

• The development of the Saltire Centre has been informed by a wide diversity of conversations with educationalists, architects, staff, students and designers.
• The thinking behind it is based on a body of experience and research as well as experience from the Learning Café at the University. The Learning Café at Glasgow Caledonian was an early experiment with the use of space to support project work, problem-based learning and group work. Developed in 2001, this was located on the ground floor of the old Library building. Here wired PCs and wireless hotspots integrated online communication and learning activities into the social ambience of a café. Computers were placed close to refreshments for quick access to email and other online resources over a cup of coffee. Laptops or tablet PCs could be used in groups from easy chairs or individually from high stools on benches around the café, depending on the requirements of the individual. The enormous success of the café as a learning space is verified by student evaluations.
• The students intuitively knew how to use this space from the first day that it opened and the evidence gathered from this experiment has informed the development of the Saltire Centre, underpinned by a growing acknowledgement that in a mass higher education system, peer group interaction and learning are crucial to student success.

It is the policy of the University to develop an ethos of partnership between students and the administration of library and learning resources. The design of the Centre and the way in which it is administered recognise the social origins of learning and the need for interaction between learners on different levels and in different forms. It is believed that a customer-service model will elicit a greater potential to learn amongst students and a corresponding respect for the centre and its facilities. Most student services are available from the one integrated service which enables face-to face contact for over 72 hours per week on the basics of most services. However, the deliberate intermingling of social interaction and learning on such a large scale sets this model apart from other innovative designs, which have hitherto been on a small scale and seen as less central to the main campus. The Principal combined the success of the learning café with his desire to create a campus hub. This means that the Saltire Centre has five entrances and exits connecting the building with the main teaching blocks.

• The Learning Café and the Saltire Centre are both overt strategies to re-socialise the University and encourage conversations between students and staff that engage the whole community as co-learners, exposing their understanding and ideas to those of others. It is this questioning and dialogue that lead to deep understanding of concepts and ideas.
• The University also took the opportunity to review the emphasis on storing books and journals on campus on open shelves and put two thirds of resources into compact storage. This enabled the building to further develop the emphasis on people in the building rather than resources.

Since the opening of the Saltire Centre, the Learning Café has changed to accommodate a different user group as all its facilities are available in the Saltire Centre. The new users are people coming to the University for short courses.

The Saltire Centre links the teaching blocks on campus, providing easy access to 1800 places to study; including a 600 seat learning café, 400 computers and 150 laptops to borrow and use anywhere.

Key to the design is the gradual transition between social and solitary purposes which is reflected in the arrangement of computers and tables, so that each floor suggests a movement between social and interactive forms of learning towards quieter activities at the back, a change that is reiterated in the floors themselves, with silent learning dominating the top floor and social interaction the ground floor. This mood change is reflected in colour and design features, and supported by use of background sound at the entrances.

There is a large variety of seating available allowing user choice - the bean bags proved extremely popular!

Assistance can also be gained from an online Student Homepage as well as from staff working at the Base, a central information point located on the Ground Floor. Specialist seminar areas and consulting rooms in the Saltire Centre can be utilised for drop-in counselling and advice.

It is the hub of the learning activities in the university, providing a range of functions related to learning; from social areas and student services to wireless-enabled group learning spaces and library facilities.

The Centre's four-storey atrium spaces are flooded with sunlight or alive with light graphics after dark. Douglas fir has been used in the construction of wooden walkways and beams. The high ceilings together with the south facing glass walls give a feeling of vast space.

The café is located on the ground floor together with a variety of tables, chairs and screening. This area can also be used as exhibition or event space.

From the first and fourth floor there is access to teaching blocks so that the building is not seen as something separate or 'over there' so providing for a continuum of learning space.

The building is totally wired (most of the furniture has network points and sockets) and totally wireless.