Glasgow Caledonian University, The Saltire Centre

Success Factors

What Makes The Space Successful?

It is a single point of access for all services for students within the university, alongside the books, journals and computers expected of such a facility. The design of the building iterates the aims and aspirations of the university: that differences in learning style are to be welcomed, that learning should be seen as a social activity rather than just a solitary one, and that students should, as far as possible, be in control of their learning environment and of their own learning.

The arrangement of most furniture within the social areas of the centre can be easily reconfigured to match the size and purpose of the group and, where a discreet meeting point is called for, an inflatable igloo wall can be brought in to provide a sound baffle.

What Is Innovative About The Design And The Use Of The Space?

• The Saltire Centre is designed to be a self-regulating and highly flexible environment. Arrangement and type of computers, tables, shelving and background signals of sound and colour help users to recognise the type of activity preferred in each area. Data and power are carried in under floor cabling.
• Bespoke furniture contains power sockets to support use of laptops, plasma screens for viewing multimedia resources, display screen technologies, and for battery charging. Inflatable screens create an 'igloo' in which discussion can take place between groups, yet there is no permanence about these structures. Furniture can be reconfigured in the social areas for a range of purposes.
• Sound transference is contained by the separate access to floors from a central atrium stair with bridges across to each self-contained floor of the centre, by sound baffles in the ceiling, and by acoustic signals that suggest the type and level of sound each area is intended to support.
• The ground floor of the Centre provides a 2,500 sq m. one stop shop for all services to students - with individual service desks, meeting pods, inflatable barriers to create a meeting point, six consulting rooms located in the same environment as study spaces, and a café. The effect is that of a 'mall' in which students can shop for services, access email, find refreshments and meet others.
• This highly innovative model of learning presents a challenge to the established didactic, centralised model, in which control over students' access to, and behaviour with, learning materials is the norm. Experiences from the Learning Café have shown that there is a pattern to the way in which users behave within such spaces. Higher noise levels are to be expected at the start of a semester or academic year, when the need for social interaction is at its highest. This will then naturally diminish as the semester progresses and as the demands of the curriculum impinge on student behaviour.

The Saltire Centre opened at the end of January 2006, and has proved popular with users; a programme of regular feedback is ongoing and is feeding into developments within the space.