Collaborative Learning Space 4
Project Details
Architects
Ruth Wilson
Address
Old Arts Building 149 University of Melbourne Parkville , Victoria 3010 Australia
Submitter
Architectus
Cost
Not Disclosed
Photographer
Ian Davidson
Project Overview
Collaborative Learning Space 4 redevelops a former office space within the Old Arts building at the University of Melbourne. It builds on and develops the university’s existing typology for collaborative learning spaces, explicitly aimed at providing alternative configurations to enhance the pedagogy-space relationship and blurring the teacher-student hierarchy.
Collaborative Learning Space 4 promotes cross-class collaboration and interaction, ensuring students can engage with the entire class. This is a fundamental advantage of participating in an on-campus class. A feature is the ‘high’ student tables which enables students to undertake a much wider range of learning tasks and promotes greater movement within the room. Traditionally teachers have stood while students are seated reflecting the information exchange, a didactic approach with the teacher providing the knowledge to the students. Pedagogy has moved well beyond this and so Collaboration Space 4 softens the seating/standing dichotomy by physically elevating the students, reflecting the knowledge sharing approach. Research suggests a plethora of benefits of moving away from prolonged seating to standing tables including; movement, increased focus, engagement, alertness, productivity and keeping the creative juices flowing! Both the student tables and the walls of the room were conceived as ‘working surfaces’ to promote student-directed activity beyond the use of IT devices. The use of colour encourages and guides users through the points of interaction of the ‘working surfaces’.
The new facility also encourages and enables the ‘academic’ to move freely in the space to interact with all students and provide the ingredient that research shows is most important element in classroom effective classroom learning – responsive feedback to student activity or questions by the academic.
The teardrop shape accommodates groups of six, generously sized to enable other people to join temporarily. The tables are mobile enabling them to be brought together to support learning in larger group. Additional tables fold out from the wall joinery and provide opportunity for one on one, more intimate interactions and an alternate configuration.
The academic leaders’ station feels like collaboration table in height, materiality and shape. It houses the lighting and AV controls on a touch panel that can be configured to support the different learning modes. The capacity of the facility to support adaptable use and reconfiguration allows it to be used for a wide range of formal classes; whilst also providing students with an exemplar ‘project room’ for student use in out-of-class hours
