University of Sussex and University of Brighton:
InQbate: the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Creativity
| Contact Details: | Tom Hamilton, Sussex University, t.hamilton@sussex.ac.uk Richard Morris, Brighton University http://www.inqbate.co.uk/ |
| Type of Project: | Refurbishment project: a total of £3.75 million, structured as initial capital funding, then recurrent funding over 5 years, to develop innovative teaching and learning in creativity within both student populations, and to then disseminate those findings out to the wider HE community. The reason it was a refurbishment is because it was stipulated in the funding programme. There are two sites: one at the University of Sussex and another equivalent site at the University of Brighton. This is a joint initiative with Sussex as the lead. Although the overall design aims are aligned, each has taken a slightly different approach in their interpretation. |
| Start/End Date: | The project money was awarded in March 2005 University of Sussex: April 2006 - March 2007 The first year was primarily focussed on design. Actual building commenced in April 2006 and will be concluded in March 2007. University of Brighton: July 2005 - March 2007 Work was able to start almost immediately in July 2005 as the HEFCE funding was combined with existing internal funding to enlarge the project scope. Work is also due to be completed in March 2007. |
Lessons Learned
As far as lessons learnt, a key one is that any bespoke fitting/development, whether this is furniture, technology or whatever, is very expensive. Alternatives should be considered wherever possible as there are often ways of getting an equivalent result through clever use of off the shelf technologies. The skill lies in balancing the trade off between appropriacy for function and cost of development. I think we probably could have saved money if we had a better knowledge of what was already available. This flags the need for adequate research time at the beginning of the project. If we had the opportunity to repeat the project, I think I would make sure that we had more time for initial pre-design research - not only for user needs but also what else is happening elsewhere, and what new possibilities are offered by emerging building materials and technologies.
As with a lot of projects there was a significant pressure to get into nailing down the design and getting on with the build. If you want to do something truly innovative and different, you need to give yourselves a little bit more time to test things out. Factoring in more review points throughout the design and build process where you can review the way things were going and amend the design if needed - I think that's probably the key thing.
We ended up with quite an iterative process, in that we had a principal contactor do the major work and then we had a separate contractor doing the furniture installation - but this was only because the furniture was in-built and formed quite a significant part of the design (we had in-built bespoke sliding screens and revolving walls) However, on reflection, this gave us time to take stock and I think that would work very well for a lot of projects. It goes back to what I said before about when people, whether that's suppliers or the Estates department or academics, when they can't quite 'get' the specific purpose of different elements within the design. Making sure that there's time to review the design within the crystallizing space once the shell has been completed can allow you to identify potential problems with the existing design and possible solutions. Being able to get in there, stand there and point at them, makes it much easier to refine the furniture and technology infrastructure. It helps to be able to inhabit the emerging space to design the final space.
We've tried to work in a series of 'onion-skins' from the hard shell down through to the physical hand held devices - both from a budgetary and physical design perspective. This means we've developed the walls, then a layer of technology, then some furniture, a layer of technology, second layer of furniture and then finally a layer of subdividings with technological kernels within them - finally, laptops and handheld technologies fit with the users that inhabit these areas.
We've consciously tried to minimise the number of portable devices contained within the space. This is principally to minimise the logistics involved in managing a large number of small devices for large, and variable, groups of students. Instead we have focussed on technology that has been built in to the architecture of the space - nearly all of the technology is fixed to the ceiling grid or embedded within the walls. This is not only easier to manage and maintain over time but also has the benefit that the technology is not overly foregrounded on the learner's perception. The technology doesn't dominate the space - individual devices and systems come into play only whenever necessary to support a particular learning activity.
