Public #2: Education Futures

Education Futures Ross Donaldson

Public#2

“Woods Bagot’s ‘Education Futures’ is a think tank which feeds our design studio. Through the consolidation of the company’s intellectual capital across its specialist disciplines it is a continuing project of research and development. As the first in a series of research papers heralded in Public #1 ‘Spatial Tactics’, this work is at the core of resetting the path of Woods Bagot towards a more accessible and fluid organisation tuned to the world in which we work.”

Ross Donaldson

1.1 Learning Objects 12 by Ross Donaldson1.2 The New Learning Environment: 14 Hybrid Designs for Hybrid Learning by Dr Kenn Fisher

New Pedagogies01

034.1 Sustainable Learning 66 Environments by John Liddiard/Michael Michelides

4.1 The Future of the Library 76 by Mark Kelly

Sustainable Learning Environments

2.1 The Yin and Yang of University 24 Positioning Strategies by Professor Simon Marginson

3.1 Flexible Learning Flexible Working 38 by Ross Donaldson3.2 Benchmarking and Adding Value 42 by Ross Donaldson3.3 Masterplanning 48 by Ross Donaldson3.4 Flexibility in Specialised 58 Buildings for Research by Ross Donaldson/Harry Charalambous

Inside Out02There has to be a way out of here

04

Life Imitates Art

“Culture is the means by which a society represents itself to itself. Art, in externalising the understanding of the world, transforms it, making it possible to reflect, review and act upon the world. Art is the medium for tangible reflection about ourselves and the world in which we live.

Architecture is the mother of the arts!”

Ross Donaldson, Public#1, May 2006

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Ross Donaldson is a Director of Woods Bagot and leads the company’s work in the Education Sector.

As an academic, he lectured for 17 years at the University of Western Australia in both Social Theory and Design. He has published many articles and papers within this field and presented papers at numerous international conferences in Asia, Europe and Australia.

His professional life has encompassed the design of universities and schools in the Middle East, China and Australia. These include the recently completed campus serving the oil and gas industry in Doha, Qatar and the new national university for the United Arab Emirates in Al Ain. In Asia, the work includes the concept for a new campus on Heng Quin Island and a multi-media school in Zhu Hai, both for the Beijing Normal University. Current projects include the new Business School for the University of Western Australia, Perth Modern School and the innovative Minerals and Chemistry Precinct for Curtin University and the CSIRO.

Ross has been an architectural leader in the rapidly evolving paradigm framing the planning and design of academic environments. He strongly believes his profession must be an active contributor to the world of ideas which surround and inform education practice.

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Dr Kenn Fisher, Doctor of Science is an educational planner with over 30 years experience as a teacher, facility and project manager, campus planner and researcher in all educational sectors. He holds doctoral degrees from Flinders and Deakin universities and postgraduate qualifications in project management and teaching. He was for ten years Woods Bagot’s Managing Partner for Educational Planning and Design and also held the position of OECD Head of the Programme on Educational Building based in Paris in 1997/8. Kenn hopes to see the demise of the classroom – as we currently know it – in his lifetime.

Professor Simon Marginson, Simon Marginson holds a Personal Chair in Education at Monash University, and is an Australian Professorial Fellow (APF), the first APF in the field of Education. He has worked at Monash since July 1998 and is now Director of the Monash Centre for Research in International Education in the Faculty of Education. His current research and writing projects are concerned with higher education, and comparative and international education, in the context of economic and cultural globalisation. Professor Marginson is a frequent public commentator on education policy and has conducted Australian Research Council-funded projects continuously since 1993.

John Liddiard, joined Woods Bagot in 2000 having successfully completed contracts in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. John has specialised in large-scale construction jobs, including the new Hong Kong International Airport and the Al Faisaliah Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – both with Norman Foster and Partners. Recent projects in Australia include the new Business School at the University of Western Australia and the Minerals and Chemistry Precinct at Curtin University.

Mark Kelly, Director, joined Woods Bagot in 1989, and has over twenty years of experience working as an architect and designer in both Australia and the United Kingdom. He has a broad range of design skills but also brings a strong track record in specialist research and laboratory facilities including the National Stem Cell Research Facility and the National Neuroscience Facility Centre in Melbourne, Monash University Science and Technology Research Innovation Precinct (S.T.R.I.P) Clayton Campus, CSIRO Division of Minerals Research Complex, Clayton and the La Trobe Library, Victoria.

Contributors Dr Kenn Fisher Prof Simon Marginson John Liddiard Mark Kelly Michael Michelides Harry Charalambous

Michael Michelides, is a Principal at Woods Bagot, with over 30 years experience. His creative and highly disciplined approach to the resolution of high profile public, institutional and commercial architecture has consistently delivered solutions answering functional imperatives with ground breaking design. Projects include the College of the North Atlantic, Doha, University of Western Australia new Business School, Perth Modern School, CSIRO Bentley and the Minerals and Chemistry Precinct, Curtin University, Western Australia.

Harry Charalambous, Harry is an architect whose special area of competence is the concept design and planning of large institutional and commercial projects with particular emphasis on major site masterplanning and integration of site infrastructure, landscape and services. He has worked on an extensive range of projects both within Australia and throughout Europe and Asia, including La Trobe University Research Sciences Facilities and Central Library Building, Albury Wodonga Campus; Monash University Science & Technology Research Innovation Precinct (S.T.R.I.P), Stage 1, Clayton Campus; Townsville General Hospital, QLD and the CSIRO Division of Minerals Research Complex, Clayton; and urban regeneration projects in Manchester and Liverpool, United Kingdom.

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past

present

past

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01New Pedagogies

New Pedagogies

1.1 Learning Objects by Ross Donaldson 121.2 The New Learning Environment Hybrid Designs 14 for Hybrid Learning by Dr Kenn Fisher

Learning Objects* by Ross Donaldson

* A learning object is defined as a collection of information assembled using metadata to match the personality and needs of an individual learner

BLOGGING

BROWSING METATAGGING

PODCASTING

BROWSING

BROWSING

BROWSING

BROWSING TEXTING BROWSING

WEBCASTING

METATAGGING LEARNING OBJECTS

Section 1.1 Learning Objects

12/13 Copyright in the logos reproduced as part of this article are owned by Google.

“blogging, texting, podcasting, webcasting, metatagging” and formerly “browsing and surfing” back in the old days when “internet, world-wide-web and email” were new words … these new words and old words with new meanings have entered our language since the beginning of the information age.

Explosions of new words in societies have always been associated with dramatic shifts in structure or thinking processes.

The presence of these words represents the phenomenal evolution of new ways of accessing and transmitting information. The information age generations (xyz) have grown up with an incredible flexibility in mapping fields to access information in a peculiarly non-linear process.

Google, of course, is one of the starring performers in this field of conceptual mapping. The students of this mapping have the ability to move rapidly across seemingly divergent and unrelated disciplines in their exploratory searches. In doing so they discover or create new associations between material and ideas. It’s not just that they can encounter large volumes of information. In fact this is one of the risks in generating overload. It is that they can quickly juxtapose conceptually divergent content.

For the teacher, the big question in all this is how the process relates to the accessing of and to the generation of knowledge. At the risk of stating the self-evident, information is not knowledge.

Many years ago, I remember being intrigued by a book by Peter Medaware on scientific research. He tells that whenever he felt the need to refresh his mind or break the bind of his present mindset, he would reorganize his library, placing previously unrelated texts next to each other. It was as if the ideas and theories would somehow ooze through the binding of one book and permeate the conceptual fields of another through some kind of theoretical osmosis and he would have a new idea.

The boundaries we put around types of knowledge, through library classification systems and disciplines of knowledge such as science and maths and arts can be the walls across which conceptual leaps must climb.

Google can rearrange your “library” of information for you in nanoseconds.

Thus there are at least two key drivers for teachers to manage flexibility in their pedagogical frameworks. Firstly these frameworks should facilitate more rapid acquisition and development of knowledge. Secondly, it is a simple and inescapable fact that their students are no longer programmed to think in a linear way. Previously the knowledge was captured in a book and the teacher’s job was to facilitate the acquiring of the information therein and (hopefully) understanding it.

You could argue that bright students were always given to thinking laterally. Now everyone is doing it, in a way.

The teacher is now facilitating this mapping of fields of information and trying to help manage it into a frame for knowledge.

As an architect, this raises some confronting questions to be addressed alongside the teacher. Due to wireless, students can be accessing the information anytime, anywhere via laptops and PDA’s and soon perhaps using new tools such as e-paper. They don’t need any particular kind of physical space within which to get the information.

And whilst there has been an explosion in new frameworks for what used to be called distance learning, there remains a strong belief in the value of the social domain of learning and physically locating that process in a school or university.

So what should these places look like and how should they work to optimize the facilitation of the transforming of information into knowledge? There seems to be little to suggest they would look anything like the traditional classroom.

If the information which used to be transferred to the student in the classroom can be accessed anywhere, then the primary role of the spaces in a learning environment is to facilitate a social exchange amongst learners and between learners and teachers.

Flexibility thus emerges as the key. Flexibility in facilitating a variety of modes of social exchange, flexibility in responding to the particular needs of the relations between the participants and what may become a pattern of a relatively quick and spontaneous reconfiguring of these relations. The performance criteria for both the space and the teacher in this condition can be pretty demanding.

“Education Futures” explores some of the implications of this. In addition to presenting aspects of what we have learnt at Woods Bagot, we have contributions from Dr Kenn Fisher and Professor Simon Marginson.

Kenn’s paper specifically focuses on the new learning environment. He has for many years been pursuing his goal of seeing “the demise of the classroom – as we currently know it – in his life time”. Indeed, much of the other content herein, is due to Kenn’s long role as mentor to us at Woods Bagot.

Simon’s paper looks at the broader picture of the organizational and operational pressures on universities as they position themselves in the highly competitive world of tertiary education. The paper was his keynote paper at the 2005 TEFMA Conference held in Perth, Australia and surveys the funding pressures on universities throughout the world to be innovative, particularly in the context of research.

BLOGGING BROWSING

BROWSING

BROWSING

BLOGGING

WEBCASTING

LEARNING OBJECTS

THE NEW LEARNING ENVIRONMENT:

HYBRID DESIGNS FOR HYBRID LEARNING

BY DR KENN FISHER

Section 1.2 The New Learning Environment: Hybrid Designs for Hybrid Learning

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INTRODUCTION Educational delivery is at last seeing the ICT revolution we were promised a couple of decades ago when the desktop computer became commonplace. Since that time the internet and email were supposed to kickstart an online approach to learning, but in reality the time and cost of production of interactive multi-media material has been too prohibitive to mainstream the concept.

Now, with the advent of highly mobile ICT devices, coupled with wireless capabilities and broadband access generally, this has put even more pressure on teachers to prepare material which is in formats other than lecture notes, textbooks and laboratory practicals. CDROMs are also becoming common and now distance education is merging with online delivery to offer a seamless educational delivery platform which ranges from fully online to fully face-to-face.

And of course there is everything in between leading to what is increasingly becoming a blended or hybrid educational delivery platform. This is affecting the nature of face-to-face campus-based teaching, learning and research, but in ways still not well understood to date. Campus based students continue to “vote with their feet” confirming the adage that learning is socially constructed – people still want to be part of a community of learners. Whilst there is an increasing virtual element to this, there is a corresponding refocus on what role the campus – and the relationship between pedagogy, place and space – takes.

Yet the physical learning environment is still predominantly stuck in the industrial age egg-crate model, with classrooms, laboratories and lecture halls dominating the campus learning environment. Space and place – whilst of some interest to university managers in terms of image, identity and market position – still has an uncertain link to the pedagogical process. It is now time that a complete rethinking of the position space and place plays in campus life is considered – the same level of attention that ICT’s are given in planning and management should be given to the physical environment. I am arguing for a more seamless approach to ICT and facilities – for both are what I call “technologies of learning”. ICT, place and space should all be considered under this umbrella so that they are planned, designed and managed in a fully integrated manner as illustrated in Bill Mitchell’s elegant diagram (Figure 1). Only then can architects, ICT managers, facility managers and, ultimately, teachers offer a fully integrated educational, technological delivery to students on (and off) campus.

GRADUATE COMPETENCIES AND PEDAGOGIES Concurrently with these developments in ICT, universities and vocational colleges have been exploring what characteristics their graduates need to have to succeed when they finish their studies. Vocational colleges have been focusing on competencies shaped by Industry Advisory Boards, whilst universities have increasingly been adopting the European model of graduate competencies or student attributes (Figure 2). These are significantly broader, in my opinion, than what can be achieved in the traditional classroom context2.

These competencies require a much broader range of pedagogies than provided by the teacher-centred approach in the traditional classroom. They are clearly more student-centred and more aligned with what is required of adult learning pedagogical approaches. A much wider range of pedagogies is now necessary, as illustrated (Figure 3).

Planners, designers and facility managers, not to mention teachers, now need to explore alternatives to the classroom to deliver such a range of pedagogies. Such a strategy should link the pedagogical paradigm, its approach and its spatial archetype so that they are all directly related (Figure 4).

This illustrates that the classroom has to adapt to a range of pedagogical delivery approaches – clearly the traditional teacher-centred classroom is increasingly unable to offer the range required.

LINKING PEDAGOGY AND SPACE Learning settings are thus becoming much more than the classroom. In fact if these competencies are to be fully developed students will work in a range of modalities, either independently or in teams, and increasingly informally or socially, collaborating through the social construction of knowledge in “learning communities” (Figure 5).

So a wide range of co-located learning settings will need to be available concurrently in the form of a learning hub or flexible learning centre, to allow for such a range of collaborative and alternative approaches.

How these settings are arranged is of increasing importance in campus planning and design. No longer should we be measuring utilisation solely based on timetables and room bookings, occupancy and frequency. Students need to be able to move into a range of spaces at will, both formally and informally, inside buildings and outside under colonnades and arcades.

One way of organising spaces is through what we might call modalities of learning. Spaces can be clustered using the following characteristics (Figure 6):

– Mode 1 (teacher-centred)

– Mode 2 (student-centred)7

– Mode 3 (informal or social)8

Students should be able to move between these modalities according to their needs. Computer laboratories for example, if well designed, can adapt to be all three depending on how the users occupy and use the space, and what rules are established for its use. Such an approach is appearing in various educational institutions across the globe, but only incrementally. Indeed many of these concepts are still in their infancy and the following section illustrates some of the prototypes.

DeliveringInstructor controls presentationfocus on presentationpassive learning

ApplyingControlled observationone-to-one, informal active learning

CreatingMultiple disciplinesleaderless/egalitariancasual/active learning/research

CommunicatingKnowledge is dispersedimpromptu deliveryorganise information

Decision makingInformation is sharedleader sets final directionsemi-formal to formal/decision making

Content focussed >>>

Memory >>>

Rote learning >>>

Individual testing/ >>>competitive

Problems not ‘real’ >>>

Set tasks within subject >>>

Within discipline >>>

Rigid timetables >>>& supervision

Synchronous

Face-to-face meeting places

Site specific signageexhibitionsinstallationswhite board

TelephoneVideo ConferenceText MessagesShared Cyber Links

internetwebvirtual Studio‘google it’

LocalR

emote

Asynchronous

Teacher Centred

Learner Centred

Process focussed – learn to learn

Critical thinking

Ability to communicate

Work in teams/collaborative

‘Authentic problem solving’

Project based learning

Cross disciplinary learning

Self organise/self-directed

Disciplines

Homogenous

Organisationally hierarchical

Tends to preserve its form

Quality control – codes of practice relevant to a particular discipline

Context – cognitive & social norms governing basic research (ARC)

Lecture Theatres, Laboratories

Mode 1 – Closed Mode 2 – Open

Trans-disciplinary

Heterogeneous

Organisationally heterarchial

Transient

Quality control – more socially accountable and reflexive

Context – around a particular application (eg CRC)

Flexible Learning Centres, Studios

Student skillswritingreadingtalking

presentingmaking

Student competenciescritical thinkingcommunicating(multi modes)

integrated curriculum

explicitinstruction

others resourcebased

teamcollaborative

Teachersas facilitators




projectbased

student as researcher

disciplinespeciality

researchbased

self directed (individual reflective)

individual learning

fieldbased

Self directive spaces

Work-station

Personaloffice

Personalstudy

Case room/study

Board/conferencerooms

Specialisthighlyservicedspace

Loose tablesand chairs

Video/teleconferencerooms

Computerstudios

Syndicaterooms

Projectroom

Studiospaces

Col

labo

rati

ve s

pace

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Classroom/training room

Library

Generalpurposerooms

Internetcafe

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Memory >>>

Rote learning >>>






Synchronous





LocalR

emote

Asynchronous

Teacher Centred

Learner Centred


Critical thinking







Disciplines

Homogenous







Trans-disciplinary

Heterogeneous


Transient





presentingmaking



explicitinstruction


teamcollaborative





projectbased



researchbased


individual learning

fieldbased


Work-station

Personaloffice

Personalstudy

Case room/study





Computerstudios

Syndicaterooms

Projectroom

Studiospaces

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labo

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pace

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Library

Generalpurposerooms

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Memory >>>

Rote learning >>>






Synchronous





LocalR

emote

Asynchronous

Teacher Centred

Learner Centred


Critical thinking







Disciplines

Homogenous







Trans-disciplinary

Heterogeneous


Transient





presentingmaking



explicitinstruction


teamcollaborative





projectbased



researchbased


individual learning

fieldbased


Work-station

Personaloffice

Personalstudy

Case room/study





Computerstudios

Syndicaterooms

Projectroom

Studiospaces

Col

labo

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ve s

pace

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Library

Generalpurposerooms

Internetcafe

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FIGURE 1 Integrating ICT, space and place in learning1

FIGURE 2 Graduate competencies & student centred learning3

FIGURE 3 Students at the centre of learning4

STAFF HAVE CHOSEN TO REDUCE THEIR OFFICE SIZES, INCREASE THE USE OF COLLABORATIVE SPACE, AND CO- LOCATE OTHER SPACES TO CREATE A MORE DYNAMIC SOCIAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.

PROOF All educational (and some corporate ‘learning organisation’) sectors are exhibiting some examples of such innovative learning environments.

Within the secondary schools sector the Australian Science and Mathematics School (ASMS)9, completed in 2003, was conceived as specialist focus for senior secondary (10-12) years on the campus of Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia (Figure 7). The school fosters relationships with the Schools of Education, Science and Engineering at the university, the Professional Teachers Associations and the Curriculum Policy Directorate with the SA government’s Department of Education and Children’s Services.

Its main aim is to provide leadership in regenerating the teaching of maths and science and makes extensive use of “best available resources”, particularly ubiquitous ICT. The curriculum was developed within a series of “BIG IDEAS” rather than traditional subjects, based on learning in the workplace, the community and the university.

The ASMS encourages learning and problem solving within both individual and group contexts, through collaborative working relationships and flexible teaching and learning groups. It “repackages knowledge to create new understandings to meet the complexities of the modern world”. It also promotes interdisciplinary life and learning, through collaboration in theoretical, conceptual and practical knowledge from various fields of study.

The ASMS takes an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum design, teaching and learning, supporting an approach by “inquiry” and “constructivist” learning. To support this pedagogical strategy, the floorplan has no classrooms and is based around Mode 1, 2 and 3 concepts.10

In the tertiary sector, the University of Western Australia’s School of Business (Figure 11) is also seeking to rethink its spatial arrangements, more in keeping with its pedagogical aspirations. Staff have chosen to reduce their office sizes, increase the use of collaborative space, and colocate other spaces to create a more dynamic, social, learning environment.

Such approaches are increasingly evident through ARC Linkage Grants, Cooperative Research Centres and the still-robust concept of the research or technology park. Examples of these clustered and collaborative approaches are emerging worldwide, with a number of very successful examples in Australia and the Middle East. The University of Adelaide’s Waite Campus and the Curtin University’s research park are two in which Woods Bagot have been heavily involved.

Another Woods Bagot project, the Qatar Science and Technology Park (Figure 8), has been designed to encourage the formation and growth of knowledge-based businesses and other associated organisations. The new Park will become a learning centre for world leaders in research and technology fields. Driven by Federal Government policies regarding the commercialisation of intellectual property, the CSIRO in Australia is another adherent to these more collaborative and socially constructed knowledge research practices.







Memory >>>

Rote learning >>>






Synchronous





LocalR

emote

Asynchronous

Teacher Centred

Learner Centred


Critical thinking







Disciplines

Homogenous







Trans-disciplinary

Heterogeneous


Transient





presentingmaking



explicitinstruction


teamcollaborative





projectbased



researchbased


individual learning

fieldbased


Work-station

Personaloffice

Personalstudy

Case room/study





Computerstudios

Syndicaterooms

Projectroom

Studiospaces

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Library

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FIGURE 5 A range of settings for a range of modalities6







Memory >>>

Rote learning >>>






Synchronous





LocalR

emote

Asynchronous

Teacher Centred

Learner Centred


Critical thinking







Disciplines

Homogenous







Trans-disciplinary

Heterogeneous


Transient





presentingmaking



explicitinstruction


teamcollaborative





projectbased



researchbased


individual learning

fieldbased


Work-station

Personaloffice

Personalstudy

Case room/study





Computerstudios

Syndicaterooms

Projectroom

Studiospaces

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labo

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pace

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Library

Generalpurposerooms

Internetcafe

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FIGURE 4 Linking pedagogy and space5


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Memory >>>

Rote learning >>>






Synchronous





LocalR

emote

Asynchronous

Teacher Centred

Learner Centred


Critical thinking







Disciplines

Homogenous







Trans-disciplinary

Heterogeneous


Transient





presentingmaking



explicitinstruction


teamcollaborative





projectbased



researchbased


individual learning

fieldbased


Work-station

Personaloffice

Personalstudy

Case room/study





Computerstudios

Syndicaterooms

Projectroom

Studiospaces

Col

labo

rati

ve s

pace

s


Library

Generalpurposerooms

Internetcafe

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FIGURE 6 The new production of knowledge

FIGURE 7 Australian Science and Maths School, Flinders University

FIGURE 8 Qatar Science and Technology Park

REPACKAGING KNOWLEDGE TO CREATE NEW UNDERSTANDINGS TO MEET

THE COMPLEXITIES OF THE MODERN WORLD.

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PROMOTING INTERDISCIPLINARY LIFE AND LEARNING, THROUGH COLLABORATION IN THEORETICAL, CONCEPTUAL AND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE

FROM VARIOUS FIELDS OF STUDY.

FIGURE 9 College of the North Atlantic, Qatar


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FIGURE 10 Project for the Southbank Education and Training Precinct, Brisbane.

FIGURE 11 University of Western Australia Business School

THE FUTURE Over the past decade or so there has been constant pressure from facility managers within educational institutions to explore more innovative designs in learning environments. This was most recently showcased in the 2005 TEFMA Seminar series in Brisbane (March) and Christchurch (July) where some 20 papers were presented on the design of learning environments.11

There are also now emerging signs of interest within the Professional Development Units of universities who are now exploring how ICT, space and place are evolving and how these are impacting on pedagogical practices.12 There are a number of other research organisations also examining such innovations, although still these tend to be driven by designers rather than teachers. For example the OECD Programme on Educational Building is about to launch its third compendium on new learning environment case studies.13

Increasingly architects are being cast by clients as “change managers” where clients are using the re-engineer of ICT, space and place as a means to reengineer the workplace pedagogical and operational culture of their schools, departments and research units.

Yet all too often these attempts become futile as the planning and design approaches often do not get to the root of what it is that teachers, students and researchers actually do, and how and why this is changing (or not, in some cases).

It is only through a collaborative, consultative and “co-constructed” approach to the design of learning environments will more successful outcomes be achieved. The challenge is for designers and teachers to learn each others’ language – the language of design and the language of pedagogy must intersect.

To date this intersection has been achieved largely through the role of that rare species known as the “educational planner” who acts as a translator or interpreter. This concept is accepted as commonplace in health planning, but only a handful of educational planners practice across the globe.

It is incumbent on architects to take up the challenge and become defacto educational planners to assist in the ever changing transformation of the emerging new learning environment and learn the language of the science of teaching and learning – or pedagogy – and assist in the teaching of the language of space and place to those who use those spaces.

Woods Bagot, through its newly appointed Director James Calder, is hoping to influence this process through the newly launched Workplace Planning and Design Programme at the University of Melbourne’s School of Architecture.14 This will see a generic programme supported by three specialist electives – office planning, health planning and educational planning.

I look forward to a much brighter future in the immediate future for campus based experiences for both teachers and students as a result of some of the concepts outlined above.

1 Mitchell, W, Seminar at QUT, October, 2004 2 http://www.unimelb.edu.au/student/attributes.html3 Fisher, K, TEFMA Seminar, Brisbane

(March, 2005) and Christchurch (July, 2005)4 op cit. Fisher, 20055 Fisher, K, TEFMA Seminar, Brisbane

(March, 2005) and Christchurch (July, 2005), adapted from Scott-Webber (2004)

6 op cit. Fisher, 20057 Fisher, K, unpublished Doctoral thesis, 20028 Frowd, A, QUT, October, 2004

9 Fisher, K, in association with Woods Bagot (2003)10 Fisher, K, TEFMA Seminar, Brisbane

(March, 2005) and Christchurch (July, 2005), adapted from Gibbons et al (2004)

11 http://www.tefma.com/infoservices/papers/2005_ FutureLearningEnvironments_Workshop_Mar05/index.jsp

12 http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategor yid=8&newsstoryid=744 http://tank.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/mettle/mettleRegister.cfm13 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/17/34514227.pdf14 http://www.abp.unimelb.edu.au/courses/pg/pgwpd/

FIGURE 12 Southbank Education and Training Precinct

02There must be some way out of here

2.1 The Yin and Yang of University Positioning Strategies 24 by Professor Simon Marginson

Section 2 There must be some way out of here by Simon Marginson

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‘There must be some way out of here’ said the joker to the thief.

‘There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief…’

‘No reason to get excited’ the thief he kindly spoke. ‘There’s many here among us who think life is but a joke.

But you and I have been through that and this is not our fate. So let us not talk falsely now, The hour is getting late.

Bob Dylan, All along the watchtower

A paper about the Yin and Yang of university positioning strategies

by Professor Simon Marginson

Keynote address to the Tertiary Education Facility Managers Association conference

Perth, 27-29 September 2005

THERE MUST BE SOME WAY OUT OF HERE

POSITION AND POSITION-TAKING (THE YIN AND THE YANG) The options that institutions have are a matter of both the hand they are dealt with, and the way that they play it. And perhaps, whether they ask for new cards at the right moment in the game. Position and position-taking, the Yin and the Yang.

There is one good theorisation of higher education by a master social scientist, and that is Pierre Bourdieu’s 1988 Homo Academicus (= ‘Academic Man’). For Bourdieu higher education is a competitive field in which universities are both positioned and position-taking. I like this notion of “position-taking” and I will use it today. It embodies the idea that institutions act for themselves, that they are self-determining - and also that in so acting they are channelled towards positions, spots or opportunities that already exist as part of the structuring of the system and are consistent with their own history and location. Yet the boundaries around these pre- set positions are always moving; and sometimes a university can create quite a new kind of position for itself using an imaginative go-it-alone strategy. That is rare but it happens.

Position-taking and position interact. Institutions are positioned by their history, the expectations they have of themselves and communities have of them; by their resources (financial, human, assets and facilities, location, etc.); and self-positioned by their boldness and capacity to be responsive and to change; by their business and general staff-servicing capacities, by their academic capacities. At any given time some institutions have more scope for position-taking than others. Some have more resources, capacities, imagination, desire, courage. Whatever it takes.

I want to emphasise that when I say position-taking or position I am not just talking about marketing. One of the mistakes that institutions can make in this environment is to see their marketing division as the proxy for their whole strategy. Marketing should be a servant of a position-taking strategy, not its master.

The Nelson reforms (Brendan Nelson Australian Minister for Education 2005) have reset the environment of position and position taking. They change the available positions. We now have positions with a new viability, such as teaching-only private institutions, and comprehensive private universities like Notredame. The Nelson reforms change to some extent the terms by which position is allocated: research performance has become more crucial. They change the means available for position-taking: surplus from full fees has become crucial. They make position itself more specialised and less ambiguous: mission specialisation has a new weight and comes onto the agenda of many institutions.

THE FIELD OF WORLD-WIDE HIGHER EDUCATION First then let’s look at the field of world-wide higher education. Higher education always was an international sector, but for the most part the international connections took place at the margins of each nation and each university. In the last 20 years there has been a decisive change: the formation of a single worldwide network of universities, a networked global “system”, in which every university is aware of every other. For this we can thank the Internet, and intensified and extended (and cheapened) people movement across borders especially by doctoral students and academics, and the emergence of a single English language system of knowledge.

Global higher education is in our face. We are competing with all institutions, especially in Asia. When NUS Singapore goes to 100 in the world table of research universities, that has implications for all institutions in Australia. When China goes past Australia in its number of universities in the top 500 – something that happened this year – that matters.

GLOBALISATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION HAS MEANT TWO MAJOR CHANGES: 1. The formation of a semi-integrated world market on two levels. The top tier is the Global Superleague, such as Harvard and Oxford, consisting of highly prestigious non-commercial universities. The second tier, where all the Australian universities are located, consists of exporters of degree programs. Increasingly the market on this tier is commercial in character.

2. The amazing world-wide convergence of ideas of good practice in system design, funding, and institutional management and university organisation. National/ local nuances, idiosyncrasies and strengths flourish but to a growing extent these variations are played out against the common global template.

I’ll start by looking at this second change, the global ideological convergence in policy and management. There are several elements to this ideological convergence.

First, two dominant models have emerged, in the modelling (the idealizing or imagining) of institutions and national markets. One model is the US Ivy League private institution, which has tremendous status on a world scale and even more inside the USA. The Ivy League university stands as the idea of the elite university everywhere, despite the fact that the conditions that support it cannot be replicated outside the USA. The other model is that of commercial for-profit vocational no frills no research provider, the University of Phoenix. Phoenix is now the largest private university in the US and has spread to many nations, including India. The American for-profit sector is supported by a $50 billion equity market. This is not going to go away. It will just get bigger (try shutting a Casino!).

The result of the new ascendancy of the two kinds of private sector models is that the form of university long dominant throughout the world, even in the US where it has three quarters of enrolments, that of the public or state/national university, has been deeply problematised. The model of public universities directly publicly funded for the public good, combining mass education, social accessible and semi-selectivity with quality research;now finds itself outcompeted at each end of its continuum. It does not have the status power of the selective sexier looking private universities. And as a comprehensive institution it carries too many costs and public obligations to be able to beat the commercial institutions in the efficient production of mass education.

The second element in the worldwide ideological convergence is the rise of subsidised student loans in place of direct public funding as the dominant form of public funding support. This process has far to go but is now underway. Not that neither the Ivy League model nor the commercial model depends on the direct government funding of the institution for teaching places, though in the US both models benefit from voucher style loans funding of students – the Ivy League has had it for a long time, the commercial sector is getting it now - and the Ivy League receives extensive research funding. Some student loans systems are commercial loans systems; others have generous payback and waiver clauses and may be income contingent, as in the case of the Australian HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP.

In fact the long-term global policy debate may well come down to the antinomies of commercial loans versus income contingent loans. Income contingent loans provide much better for social access - as we know from the history of HECS, income contingent tuition charges/loans function almost like free tuition at the point of access - but carry growing public cost over time, and do not generate profits for the financial sector. In many countries the financial sector benefits from commercial student loans and regardless of the regressive effects on social access will not let go willingly.

The third element in the ideological convergence is the business model of organisation within universities. This has less of a hold in the strongest research universities, especially their academic units, than it is achieving elsewhere.

AUST UK GER FRA JAP IRE

public spending

USA, 53

UK,

11

Japan, 5

Germany, 5

Canada, 4

France, 4

Sweden, 4

Switzerland, 3

Netherlands, 2

Australia, 2others*

, 7

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UK, 12%

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New Australian Research Council Discovery Grants, 2005

Change in spending on tertiary education institutions, 1995-2002 (OECD 2005 data)


Where academic prestige and performance drives itself, and high performance depends on intellectual freedom underpinned by resources, corporate performance management systems are likely to get in the way. For example the University of Cambridge is the number two research university in the world, but it seems to lack an executive steering capacity. The Vice-Chancellor’s office does not have much sway over the academic units, which power on, driven by their desires to excel. It doesn’t work in lesser level universities though, this notion of university organisation without an executive steering capacity. We tried it at RMIT, Melbourne a little while ago but it didn’t work!

Now I’ll turn to the global market and Australia’s position within it.

AUSTRALIA’S GLOBAL POSITION IN RESEARCH In the last three years there has been a fundamental change which has completed the evolution to a global market of universities. That is the emergence of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education (SJTUIHE 2005) worldwide ranking of universities on the basis of research performance. The Jiao Tong rankings are credible, based on solid, transparent numerical data of research quality and quantity – Nobel Prize winners, publications in prestigious journals, citations, etc. – and knowledge of the rankings has rapidly spread across the world. This has changed the ball game. Everyone is using those research rankings to locate institutions. In other words, this is how the generic “quality” of institutions is being judged, and not just in relation to research. Australian institutions, like all the rest, are now being judged by their position in (or outside) Jiao Tong. Jiao Tong provides a neat, accessible summation of a world hierarchy. It completes the evolution to a single world-wide “system” (network) of universities. Behold the power of data!

The Jiao Tong rankings provide a firm definition of the Superleague universities. There have been some shifts since the 2004 rankings, with Cambridge rising to number 2, and Tokyo slipping from 14 to 20. The US universities are very strong, with 17 of the top 20. The UK had four in the top 20 but now has three.

Australia has 14 universities in the 2005 Jiao Tong top 500, but only two in the top 100: ANU at number 56, down from equal 49 in the first survey in 2003, and Melbourne which is at 82. Sydney and Queensland are in the first 150. The rest of the Group of Eight Universities (Go8), NSW, WA, Monash and Adelaide, are in the top 300. Macquarie, Tasmania, Newcastle, La Trobe, Flinders, and Murdoch are in the world’s top 500 universities, but not Griffith, Wollongong or any of the post-1987 universities (SJTUIHE 2005). English-speaking nations have a natural advantage in the Jiao Tong rankings because English is now the only global language of research. But Australia does not do as well as the other English-speaking nations, aside from New Zealand. We perform reasonably well in our share of the top 500, indicating a broad spread of research universities, but less well at the level of the top 100 indicating a lack of quality research universities at the higher levels of performance.

By comparison Canada, which is 50 per cent bigger than Australia in GDP, has twice our number of top 100 universities (four), two of which, the Universities of Toronto and British Columbia, are ahead of ANU and placed in the top 40. The UK has a more advantageous historical position than Australia, especially in terms of the potency of its long established cultural institutions. But it has a similar GDP per head, and a similar national higher education system structure to Australia. Both moved from a binary to a unitary national system at about the same time, and until recently both shared a similar mixed public/private funding base, though Australia’s is now more privatised than is the UK. And in terms of research universities, the UK is streets ahead of Australia. The UK is three times bigger than Australia in terms of GDP and population, but has 11 per cent of the world’s top research universities (we have 2 per cent) and 8.4 per cent of the top 500 (we have 2.8 per cent).

Table 1. Towards a definition of the Global Super-league: the world’s leading universities in measured research performance, 2005

U = University; IT = Institute of Technology Source: SJTUIHE, 2005

University Nation Points01 Harvard U USA 10002 U Cambridge UK 73.603 Stanford U USA 73.404 U California, Berkeley USA 72.805 Massachusetts IT USA 70.106 California IT USA 67.107 Columbia U USA 62.308 Princeton U USA 60.909 U Chicago USA 60.110 U Oxford UK 59.711 Yale U USA 54.912 Cornell U USA 54.613 U California, San Diego USA 51.014 U California, Los Angeles USA 50.615 U Pennsylvania USA 50.216 U Wisconsin-Madison USA 49.217 U Washington (Seattle) USA 48.418 U California, San Francisco USA 47.819 Johns Hopkins USA 46.920 Tokyo U Japan 46.721 U Michigan, Ann Arbor USA 44.922 Kyoto U Japan 43.823 Imperial College London UK 43.724 U Toronto Canada 43.125 U Illinois, Urbana-Champaign USA 42.826 U College London UK 42.627 Swiss Federated IT, Zurich Switzerland 41.728 Washington U, St Louis USA 40.729 New York U USA 38.830 Rockefeller U USA 38.2

26/27

In the last three years there has been a fundamental change which has completed the evolution to a global market of universities. That is the emergence of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education (SJTUIHE 2005) worldwide ranking of universities on the basis of research performance.

I believe we have much to learn from the research success of the UK university system. One difference is the operation of the British Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) where the performance indicators focus on quality as well as quantity (we count publications and grant income in largely quantitative terms) and assessments are conducted in terms of disciplinary groupings not generic research indicators. Another difference is that a higher proportion of public funding is allocated on the basis of institutional research performance, within the discipline groups. The English universities receive about five times as much as Australian universities in terms of government operating funds targeted to research performance – almost double what the respective GDPs would suggest. This is roughly in proportion to the superior British research performance vis a vis Australia. You get what you pay for.

Table 2 provides a more precise measure of each nation’s number of research universities relative to its economic capacity. National economic capacity is measured by the size of national income (GDP) and its wealth intensity (GDP per head) –that total economic capacity equals total GDP multiplied by GDP per head (i.e. GDP² ÷ population) using World Bank (2005) economic data. Adding together each nation’s economic capacity creates a world total economic capacity, and this enables us to compare a nation’s share of world economic capacity with its share of the top research universities. This constitutes a guide to how well that nation is performing in university research relative to capacity. Nations can then be compared to each other.

Using this measure Australia has outperformed the USA at the level of the top 100, but not the top 500. In the USA the highly stratified system and strong centripetal market forces drive an extreme concentration at the level of the top 100 but a weaker spread of research capacity across the regional knowledge economies. Again we see that Australia is outperformed by both UK and Canada at the levels of the top 100 and top 500.It is also outperformed by parts of Western Europe, including Sweden, Switzerland also the Netherlands.

IN SUMMARY, WHAT DOES THE GLOBAL COMPARISON ON RESEARCH SHOW US?

> Research quality is the global standard for research universities. It is the basis for judging universities, like it or not, including their teaching. There is a good technical reason for this. Research provides objective (material) data that are a basis for homogenous comparison. That is not possible with teaching in one university let alone across international borders.

> You can’t get away with fudging it anymore. There’s no point in claiming to be a “world class research university” if you have only two or three ARC Discovery Grants a year and you’re not in the Jiao Tong top 500. No one will believe you. Now, if we claim on the advice of our marketing department to claim a role that we do not have, the market will quickly strip it from us. Either we deliver on the claim to be a “research university”, or we move to another mission, where we are not competing with the whole of the world or with the upper reaches of the national system.

> Having done so well in developing a strong export sector – the achievement has been quite extraordinary and says a lot about the capacities and qualities of Australian universities and their people, especially their executive leaders and their general staff - Australia is now suffering from the global comparison. We are newly vulnerable. The data from Jiao Tong is hurting, because they have re-positioned us and in the process have partly negated our old position-taking strategies. We used to say we were just as good as the other English-speaking nations, but cheaper and safer and with a better climate. So the differentiating factors were price, safety and location. Those days are over. Now research is the differentiating factor; and the message is that all of USA, UK and Canada are better than us. Canada, which fell behind Australia in the global market in degrees because its business approach was less effective – and perhaps also because of its climate – has been a big winner here.

> The Jiao Tong data highlights the status and power of the universities at the top, the ‘Superleague’ as the Economist (2005) called it recently. Now policy makers in many nations are talking about the need to have a ‘Superleague’ university in their own nation; for example in Germany and the Netherlands.

> In the same way, the growing visibility of the Superleague is feeding into pressures for further stratification of the Australian system. The notion of Australia having a couple of unambiguously top ranked universities has been one of the drivers of the Nelson reforms.

The nations performing better in research than economic capacity suggests are Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Netherlands, Canada, Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Hungary and Belgium. Nations performing in research about on par with economic capacity overall are the USA, Austria, Norway, Chile, France, Hong Kong China and South Africa. Underperformers include Ireland, Brazil, Japan, India, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, Korea, Spain, Poland, Greece, China, Argentina and Mexico.

Of the nations with stronger research universities than economic capacity would suggest, nearly all maintain a higher education system consisting predominantly of public or quasi-public sector institutions, mostly doctoral universities, with the majority of funding from government. Superior research performance generally rests on capacity in ‘blue sky’ (basic) research and this depends on public funding and planning, especially if the goal is a broad-based research capacity across the whole national system as in much of Western Europe. Nations with a large proportion of teaching-only and/or private institutions tend to under-perform in research. Even the USA follows this pattern in terms of the breadth of its research capacity.

To round off this world-wide picture of research activity, note that Australia is a weak player in the world wide market in doctoral education. Though we have a massive number of international students, only 4.7 per cent of them are doctoral students compared with 10-20 per cent in many European nations and US and almost 10 per cent in the UK (OECD 2005: 272).


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Figure 1. Number of research universities in world’s top 100 by nation

* One each in Italy, Israel, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Finland and Russia Source: SJTIHE, 2005

Table 2. National research performance compared to economic capacity

Share of global economic

capacity, 2004

42.64.63.01.70.70.76.5

10.73.4

Share of top 100 research universities,

2005

53.011.04.02.04.03.05.05.0

0

Share of top 500 research universities,

2005

33.68.04.62.82.21.68.06.83.6

USAUKCanadaAustraliaSwedenSwitzerlandGermanyJapanChina

Sources World Bank 2005, SJTUIHE 2005


We have been brought back to the mainstream of higher educaiton values. Worldwide people see higher education less as an industry than as institutions devoted to knowledge and people-formation, and a status market where people acquire social advantages. Students want degree status more than they want good teaching. The main indicators of institutional status are not institutional size, but selectivity and research performance. What Jiao Tong has done is provided this global status market with its performance measure, its differentiating agent.

Our very globally connected system here in Australia cannot screen out the effects of this new market wisdom. The shift towards research quality as the differentiating agent must impact our domestic system as well. So now we are competing again – “again”, because this was the case prior to the rise of the business model – on the basis not of student volumes and business acumen, so much as on more conventional academic criteria. In other words, for the future, the primary criterion, especially in the upper half of our system, is not the Graduate Destination Survey and employment rates, it’s not the results from the latest version of the Course Experience Questionnaire, it’s not student evaluations or ‘teaching quality’ or quality assurance, it’s not asset management, or the balance sheet, or the size of the council, and the other competitive criteria dreamed up by policy makers, but research and scholarship. What is true globally is also true domestically.

AUSTRALIA’S GLOBAL POSITION IN THE CROSS-BORDER DEGREE MARKET Let’s now turn to Australia’s position in the global market in degrees. There’s some evidence that the Jiao Tong rankings have affected the standing of Australian universities in that market. Market research from Europe suggests that our claims to provide good quality universities are increasingly questioned, in relation to research, and also to what is seen as a factory approach to large international student populations, Market research from China suggesting that prospective students are now ranking our universities between each other on the basis of the Jiao Tong rankings. They are moving their preferences accordingly. The presence of Jiao Tong data changes the balance between position-taking and being positioned. The Jiao Tong data lock in consumer perceptions to an extent. These data increase the extent to which we are positioned, and reduce somewhat our scope for position-taking. It is not the blank canvas for marketing departments that it was. Some brush strokes are already in place, before the marketing department starts to paint its picture.

Jiao Tong has come on the scene at a time when the global market in degrees is becoming more competitive for other reasons as well. As well as more information for consumers, there are new providers on the block, and the rapid growth of the last decade (between 1998 and 2003 the total number of cross-border students in the OECD nations grew by 48 per cent) has slowed.

It is not yet clear whether the slowdown of mobility is temporary or permanent. Clearly there is a drop in the number of students from Middle Eastern nations and Muslim countries elsewhere who are entering the USA. It is not yet clear whether this trend is general to the English-speaking world – for example numbers from Indonesian entering Australia are falling, while numbers from the Middle East and from Malaysia are stable or increasing. US data suggest a fall-off in young Chinese students entering the US higher education system, and a particular problem in the recruitment of graduate foreign students, while OECD data suggest there are marked increases in the numbers of students travelling from both India and China at present. Increasingly, those two nations generate the largest part of global mobility.

China has also become a bigger exporter in its own right (100,000 plus), as has Malaysia and Japan. In future we will need to keep an eye on Taiwan and even Korea; and also the growth of English language programs in Europe, especially the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Denmark and Sweden.

Australia constituted 9 per cent of the global market in tertiary education in 2003 and was the fifth largest exporter after the USA – whose share is declining – the UK, Germany and France (Figure 2, OECD 2005). This includes sub-degree programs.


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Figure 2. Proportion of world’s foreign students by export nation

Includes OECD nations and others that provide data to OECD, including the larger emerging national higher education systems such as China, India and Indonesia. Source: OECD, 2005, p. 254

Table 3. Leading importers of Australian higher education, 2004

China (PRC) 37,106Malaysia 28,862Singapore 28,290China (Hong Kong) 27,461India 16,320Indonesia 11,316United States 9522Thailand 5824China (Taiwan) 4533Korea South 4409Japan 4041

DEST 200528/29

I think Australia is the third largest provider of degree programs, once Germany’s data are discounted to remove the children of migrant workers who have yet to receive citizenship: children born in Germany, who are non citizens but not foreign students. The OECD data for 2003 note that 18 per cent of our tertiary students were international, the highest recorded level in the OECD. The DEST data for 2004 show that in higher education, we had more than 228,000 international students, 24.2 per cent of the enrolment (DEST 2005). This compares to only 25,000 in 1990.

China is now our major source nation, and India is on the rise. We are still tied closely to our traditional ‘backyard’ market in Southeast Asia where Australia is the most important exporter: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and to a lesser extent also Thailand (see Table 3).

International education seems to dominate the student profiles of some institutions; certainly their Business courses (see Table 4). Again, we see that the scale of the industry is remarkable. The largest US provider is the University of Southern California with 6647 students. We have 15 institutions above that level of international enrolment. A number of institutions take in more than 20 per cent of their revenues from this source, ranging up to almost 40 per cent at Central Queensland University (Table 4). The downside is that this is a very high level of exposure to a market where enrolments will not keep growing forever, may decline sharply and are already fluctuating between institutions.

What is happening to enrolments? The most recent full data available to us are for 2004 (DEST 2005, see Table 5). These show a further increase, 8 per cent. This is a slower rate of growth than in previous years, though compares favourably with the USA where there was a decline in the number of foreign students in tertiary education in 2003-2004, the first such decline for thirty years (IIE 2004).

In 2004, the number of international students entering Australia from Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong each dropped by about 5 per cent. Numbers from Malaysia were up slightly, while there was massive growth from China (37 per cent) and India (47 per cent). In 2005 it appears that commencements rose but only about 3-4 per cent, and there have been declines in some institutions. We await more data.

What does it all mean? What is happening in the global market in degrees? What are the implications for the positions of Australian institutions, and for their potential position-taking strategies?

> We are going through a sorting out period. The days of 15 per cent per annum, “our business Faculty has more money than it knows what to do with”, and loose approaches to English language entry and preparation, are over. Bad for some.

> We must break our organisational and financial dependence on continuous growth.

> We will need to start “thinking small”, not just in relation to a smaller, more competent and better prepared international enrolment; but in many institutions a smaller domestic enrolment as well, for demographic reasons and/or reasons of positioning-taking strategy.

> There might be some danger that we’ll lose our exceptionally strong export position in Southeast Asia, in part to China, in part to import replacement, in part to mobility within that region itself, in part perhaps to Europe;

Without wanting to be unduly pessimistic, we will need to guard against a larger deterioration in Australia’s position in the export market. There is a danger that the Jiao Tong rankings will combine with the continued policy-inflicted funding weakness of Australian institutions (I will discuss this further below), and the desperate “bums on seats” volume maximising strategies of some institutions, to push Australia down to a third tier, below the bulk of the UK system and Canada, and probably Singapore – to the market status currently occupied by Malaysia and China, but charging twice as much. This is a worst case scenario, but steps must be taken to head it off.

A related problem is that our strong institutions can be pulled down by the weak. We know from studies of choice that by and large, except in relation to universities in the Superleague, international students make choices on the basis not of institution but of nation. What prospective students are buying is not 40 different institutions it is one Australian higher education. So if there are a bunch of low entry-threshold bums on seats maximising providers and another bunch of research intensive institutions, and a third bunch trying to be a little bit of both, there’s every chance that the lowest common denominator kicks in and bums on seats mob set the tone. Education has to be fail safe and if it is not fail safe in some universities then the whole system looks a bit shonky. It’s the unforced error that loses this match, not the winners that win it, not unless you are in the Superleague. And right now we are not.

Therefore the main implication of all this for position-taking is that we must work to lift quality across the board. Generally we need to move from Michael Porter’s volume strategy to his quality differentiation strategy. (And the paradox is that quality differentiation is becoming essential to preserving volume). We must lift real quality and be seen to be lifting quality. I did not merely say ‘be seen to be lifting quality’. That has been our national strategy for ten years or so. It’s been much cheaper to fund quality assurance than to fund a lift in the material conditions that underpin real teaching, learning, scholarship and research quality. And it’s no longer working.

So how can we lift real educational quality, without waiting for OECD-standard levels of government funding (which could be long in coming)? I have a number of suggestions:

– get culturally closer to Asia, where every country is different. Learn languages, really integrate with Asian education systems, redesign programs with the understandings that this brings

– set higher IELTS levels

– police IELTS levels. Now this indicator is on the agenda, and performance is more transparent, we must be very careful to ensure standards

– move out of franchising, and restrain agents

– become much stronger on English language preparation and support. This is the key pedagogical issue, especially in East Asia. Unless we get more serious about building better skills and stronger standards in English in all our institutions, we are going to lose out to the other nations that have moved into English language programs, that can learn from our mistakes and trump our weaknesses, if we leave those weaknesses in place

– provide better student security and pastoral care.

NATIONAL STRATIFICATION AND POSITIONING STRATEGIES I’ll turn now to the Nelson reforms, and how these reforms (and particularly the stratification effects of these reforms) intersect with the global imperatives, competitive pressures and the tighter hierarchy in the global market.

Let’s look back briefly at the system we have just left behind, the Dawkins system. In the Dawkins system we took every opportunity to grow because that is what the system settings told us to do. Maximise student numbers so as to maximise revenues, public and private: HECS places, later marginally-funded places, always privately-funded places and later nothing else. Despite the fact that public funding was going down, private funding let us live a continuous expansion and avoid the hard questions that come with a period of contraction. Growth created economies of scale, new facilities, new general staff divisions. Though it kept stretching our teaching capacity and it stopped a lot of institutions from getting serious about research.

Nation 2003 2004 change of Origin 2003-2004 (2003=1.00)

China PRC 27,020 37,106 1.37 Malaysia 27,267 28,862 1.06Singapore 29,878 28,290 0.95China HK 29,169 27,461 0.94India 11,133 16,320 1.47Indonesia 11,865 11,316 0.95USA 9,418 9,522 1.01

Total 210,397 228,555 1.09

Table 5. Foreign students by nation of origin: Australia, 2003-2004

Table 4. Largest Australian higher education providers of international education, 2003/2004

University Number of Proportion of International Proportion of and State international all university student fee all university students 2004 students 2004 revenues 2003 revenues 2003 % $s million %Monash U (Victoria) 17,077 30.6 138.3 17.9RMIT UT (Victoria)* 15,132 39.0 111.9 21.7Curtin UT (WA)* 14,319 39.7 95.0 24.2Central Queensland U 10,460 46.8 78.2 38.2U South Australia* 10,257 31.5 49.1 16.0U Sydney (NSW) 9,806 21.2 102.2 11.7U New South Wales 9,481 23.5 118.6 16.0U Melbourne (Victoria) 9,215 22.0 137.3 14.9Macquarie U (NSW) 8,725 29.2 69.8 22.8Charles Sturt U (NSW)* 8,429 23.5 12.3 6.0U Southern Queensland 8,333 32.8 18.2 15.1U Wollongong (NSW) 7,940 37.6 49.1 20.7U Technology, Sydney 7,369 23.7 63.0 20.3Griffith U (Queensland) 7,261 21.9 58.9 16.4

Total Australia 228,555 24.2 1700.9 13.8

* more than 40 per cent of international enrolments offshore. U = University. UT = University of Technology. RMIT = Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Source DEST 2005 Source DEST 2005


Except for the sandstones, universities found that the quick way to differentiate, develop, strategise, take initiatives, employ bright new people and grow was not to leverage their academic capacity into research projects with possible medium term returns but to develop their business strategy. And there were many new business techniques on the agenda: marketing, acquisitions/mergers, off-shore colonies and partners, university-owned businesses, contracting out, performance management, internal competition, budget planning, line management and the rest. So the longer, slower but equally crucial task of building teaching and research capacity – which is the core capacity in relation to a business strategy, because it is in teaching and research that the core products are expressed; and it is here, especially in research, that institutional status are built –were neglected overall, except at ANU and in part in the sandstones. So while there was a great growth of business functions and non-academic staff divisions and people; and while the profile and organisation and even locations of some institutions changed greatly; the research hierarchy of institutions didn’t changed much. The top dozen in 2005 are much the same as in 1985.

So what is different about the Nelson system? First, there is a major new source of revenues, additional to international students: net surplus generated full fee domestic student places underpinned by FEE-HELP. Not all institutions will be able to generate surpluses, and some will go the other way and attempt to build volume on the basis of bargain-basement full fee places, the old volume building strategy. This will mean running teaching more via a business model than an academic model – carrying the trend and the models of the last few years even further.

Second, the Research Quality Framework (RQF) will allocate both status and funding on the basis of research performance, to be assessed in part at least on the basis of research quality on the basis of disciplinary assessment. These will reinforce the main effects of Jiao Tong – domestically, too, research quality will play a key role in sorting the competition. This has something of a conservatising effect, because while new business strategies can be implemented quickly it’s hard to move up the research hierarchy. It also reinforces traditional academic values. Bad news for some, welcome news for others.

Third, the other main element in the Nelson reforms is that FEE-HELP underpins the rapid emergence of a viable private sector. Note here that new private universities and colleges will have more self-positioning options than public institutions. The notion of ‘teaching-only’ private institutions makes sense, in various market niches. They could be traditional academic pastorally formative liberal arts teaching-only; smart and modern teaching-only with plenty of IT; small class intensive teaching teaching-only; vocationally focused teaching-only; specialist subject matter teaching-only; educationally progressivist teaching-only. It’s very flexible. But a public university that goes teaching-only, discarding a research mission, loses status,. That’s inescapable. Nevertheless, some will do it. They will try to build status outside the research university category, in another market.

The sandstones. As you can see, some public universities have more positioning options than others. The sandstones are the big winners. The more selective you are, the more full fee surplus you can earn. If the sandstones are wise they will put most of this surplus into research so as to build up their global position.

To position-take to maximum advantage, indeed to maximise full fee rates of surplus, the sandstones (the classic sandstones are the first universities in their state, Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide, Western Australia; and also Tasmania whose position is not as strong) will need to do more. They will need to downsize, further pushing up exclusivity; and to reduce teaching volumes to place more resources, time as well as money, into research development. The difficulty is that money is so short because of the state of public funding that this will be very hard to do.

The strategic constraint is this. When you cut student numbers, you don’t cut infrastructure costs in proportion. You have to hope that the revenue gains down the track flowing from greater exclusivity and better research performance will make it worthwhile. But in the Nelson system there are caps on the full fee market, on the number of places and the level of FEE-HELP debt. These caps tend to block risk taking of the downsizing kind. So the sandstones find themselves forced to hold onto their HECS places while adding on full fee places. They find themselves getting bigger, again, rather than following the global strategic logic of downsizing and shifting a much higher proportion of enrolments into HDR.

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Except for the sandstones, universities found that the quick way to differentiate, develop, strategise, take initiatives, employ bright new people and grow was not to leverage their academic capacity into research projects with possible medium term returns but to develop their business strategy.

It is hard to see how Melbourne and Sydney with 40,000 (or 50,000!) plus enrolments and a growing commitment to undergraduate education can position themselves for the world’s top 50 in the longer term. Queensland is also getting large; and Monash and NSW, which start from behind Melbourne and Sydney in the elite university stakes, are also big, especially Monash which already has well over 50,000 students. Only WA and Adelaide, which have kept at a more modest size, and of course ANU with its small complement of undergraduates and its large research schools with special federal funding, start the Nelson system with a favourable profile.

Another strategic need of the sandstones is to strengthen their position as a global research magnet by offering more research degree places and scholarships to both domestic and international students. But without more APAs and especially more public support for international HDR students this is very difficult to do. Philanthropy could help, and the effort to raise donor funds is being made across the country. But is there wealth out there to support a sudden increase in donations on the scale required? The problem here is that to move up the research rankings quickly, say to move into the top 100 in the world if not already there, and then into the top 50, our leading elite universities have to undergo development of the kind that took generations in North America - and to undertake solely on the basis of private income, development that in the US has been supported by both public and private income. Without much better public funding than they currently receive it simply can’t be done.

The rest. As noted, some institutions will opt to build volume using a business model and will quietly forget about a real research mission (how long will it stay on the books?). One difficulty here, especially given that they will be given no extra public money to make the transition to a high quality teaching-only model, is that they will need international revenues more than ever. But in the international market they face a problem of declining or at least questionable prestige because they are outside the main research game. Meanwhile a third group of IRUs and ATNs finds itself stuck in the middle, with significant areas of research strength, and in some cases a genuine commitment to a comprehensive research mission at the top end, but without the resources and prestige to take the sandstone path. Again what cruels the IRUs and ATNs – especially the former which were always highly public funding dependant – is federal fiscal policy on higher education. Let’s look at that for a moment.

WHERE’S THE MONEY COMING FROM? The latest edition of the OECD’s Education at a Glance (2005) explains that Australia is unique among the 30 OECD nations and the 20 or so other countries that the OECD includes in the comparative data. Between 1995 and 2002 many nations increased the private income of tertiary education institutions; in Australia the increase was 78 per cent. But Australia was unique in that it also reduced the public income of institutions, by 8 per cent, and at a time when the number of students rose by 31 per cent (Table 6).

SAYS THE OECD: ‘It is notable that rises in private educational expenditure have not generally been accompanied by cuts (in real terms) in public expenditure on education at the tertiary level… On the contrary, public investment in education has increased in most of the OECD countries for which 1995 to 2002 data are available, regardless of changes in private spending. In fact many countries with the highest growth in private spending have also shown the highest increase in public funding of education. This indicates that increasing private spending on tertiary educaiton tends to complement, rather than replace, public investment. The main exception to this is Australia, where the shift towards private expenditure at tertiary level has been accompanied by a fall in the level of public expenditure in real terms (OECD 2005: 193).

In the outcome, over 1995-2002 the number of tertiary students in Australia increased by 31 per cent; total public funding of tertiary institutions dropped 8 per cent; public funding per tertiary student dropped by 30 per cent, and although total private funding rose by 78 per cent; total expenditure on education institutions from all sources, per tertiary student fell by 7 per cent (OECD 2005:175, 187).

In terms of the global market, there was a massive growth of international students in a higher education system where overall resources, particularly for teaching, learning and research purposes - in other words, the material base that underpins the academic quality and global competitiveness of institutions - were being thinned out. Yet at the same time Australia’s financial dependence on the global market increased.

In terms of local students, the material underpinnings of quality likewise were in decline, despite the rise in private income, including HECS. Local students were paying more per head but receiving less for it, compared to the mid 1990s and more so compared to the mid 1980s. Not only was there less money per student in total, there were more expenses. Much of the new private income was being ploughed back into the costs of marketing, and the new facilities and services associated with the costs of competition and revenue-raising on and off shore. So student-staff ratios shot up from 15 to 1, to 20 to 1. The fiscal settings have been just madness.

Now in the Nelson system there is new public money, but it is being used to underpin the costs of tuition, through the effective public subsidies at the base of FEE-HELP and HECS-HELP. It is being used to support students rather than institutions, in the classic voucher model: this is great for an emerging private sector – which will swallow up a lot of the new public funding support over time – and it is sustaining enrolments in the public institutions. But because it goes to students not institutions it can’t stem the tendency to declining quality; except in the institutions that can earn significant surplus from full fees (and even there, they are restricted by the caps on the market, by the natural limits to a FEE-HELP market while HECS remains the most significant element, and by constraints on aggregative growth if they want to be world competitive). And where will universities like the strong ATNs, which did so well in the Dawkins system to upgrade their domestic provision and turn themselves into global players, find additional money in the Nelson system? They won’t.

I think that the combination of extreme fiscal scarcity, plus the Nelson reforms, is setting up the system for a transition to a comprehensive regime of high tuition charges underpinned by FEE-HELP, a high fee high aid model along American lines. If there is no new injection of public funds at scale, it is hard to see how the vestiges of the present standard cost HECS can be preserved. In such a comprehensive full fee system institutions would be able to name their own prices. So more would welcome it than just the sandstones, even though only the sandstones would clearly come out well. Government funding would make the full transition from direct grants to student loans funding (vouchers), plus a few student scholarships and of course research funding - just as is suggested by the common global policy ideology.

Table 6. Trends in the public and private funding of tertiary institutions, OECD nations*, 1995-2002

Nation Total public Total private All funding Student All funding funding funding (public/private) numbers (public/private) 2002 2002 2002 2002 per student 2002 1995=100 1995=100 1995=100 1995=100 1995=100Spain 155 140 151 115 132 Denmark 134 482 136 105 129Mexico 158 221 172 142 121 Italy 131 174 139 108 121Japan 119 121 120 102 118Austria 106 239 111 94 118France1 115 103 114 97 117Chile 137 189 176 151 116Germany 108 129 110 100 110Finland 116 n.a 118 113 104 Netherlands 106 n.a 110 107 103 Portugal 128 337 135 132 102 Hungary 158 174 161 161 100 UK 106 165 118 118 100 Australia 92 178 122 131 93 Slovak Republic 132 406 149 177 84 Czech Republic 144 52 118 170 69

Note: only nations for which full or almost full data are available are included in table. Data for USA, Canada and New Zealand are not available. Includes Chile which is a non-OECD nation. Data for Norway omitted as OECD tables are contradictory Source: OECD 2005: 175 & 187


Meanwhile the situation is tough, especially for the non sandstones. We all have to get real about mission, about position-taking strategy. I want to emphasise two points:

1. There can be only a small number of truly research intensive universities in Australia, essentially the existing ones with maybe one or two more over time (that’s unless there is a sizeable injection of new public money along the lines of Canada in the 1990s with its 2000 new research chairs). The research stairway is steep! See Figure 3;

2. We have to stop mixing missions. This is a key part of my ‘think smaller’ message.

Why do we have to stop mixing our missions, why do we have to stop trying to be all things to all people? First, the government no longer provides extra funds to help universities to position themselves as an ever-growing conglomerate, as it did (selectively) in the 1987-1993 period especially; and the per capita rate of public funding no longer provides room for both teaching and research functions. The idea that 30 per cent of the operating grant was for research functions is long dead!

Second, the logic of scarcity, plus firmer formal and informal research tiering, must dictate specialisation. It takes a lot of resources to be really genuine about the research intensive mission, in universities that haven’t achieved it before. (And remember that less than genuine research intensive missions will be increasingly transparent and will be punished short term and long term in the competition for reputation). It means moving resources out of part of teaching and out of some general staff functions – it may mean closing whole general staff divisions. It means getting smaller, it means redundancy packages. That’s inescapable.

If the intensive research mission is not a goer, and you can’t be a “half research intensive university”, the best move is to cut the effort to become research intensive and to change the formal mission and conscious position-taking strategy accordingly. And instead, to focus on servicing the teaching market and the customers in the teaching market as well as possible, joining that to community service, industry and professional links and some applied and industry-focused research.

The only problem with that position-taking strategy is that the current level of international enrolments might be more difficult to maintain at an adequate level of quality (given the positioning on research status that is underway). On the positive side it might be possible to develop pockets of full fee income from local students in niche professional areas. If this is the position-taking strategy, then to pretend to be a serious research player only exposes the institution to negative referencing that will harm its local, national and global position in the market for teaching.

Third, the logic of market competition and branding, especially in the global market, dictates the same requirement for specialisation. As Allan Luke put it on Four Corners (ABC TV, Australia) earlier in the year:

“You get where you niche yourself – you get where you pay for… You can take these student markets as naive, but they’re very smart, so if you are going for big undergraduate numbers and accepting people with limited secondary graduation credentials, you can’t turnaround to a government or another university and say “You know we’re really a top end bio-technology operation”… The market knows which of the universities actually has serious research capacity in what areas. The best PhD students will go there. The best scientists will migrate there. So you can’t grab bottom market share and then turn around and expect to have credibility as a research university… it’s pretty tough to send out mixed corporate messages about your branding” (Luke 2005).

So what are the options for position-taking in the Nelson system? Of the eight missions listed in Table 6, only three are clearly viable at present:

> Number 1 for the lucky few who have made it already, and maybe under the present system settings, one or two more who could claw there way into the elite group;

> Number 5, a few public institutions are there already and private sector aspirants will appear, some perhaps using a fully commercial approach, like the University of Phoenix;

> Number 8, though for historical reasons (and only for those reasons) it is a model much more viable in the private sector than the public sector.

The lack of small specialised institutions was a weakness of the Dawkins model. From the mid 1970s onwards the bias of policy makers was against small specialised institutions, for reasons of modernisation, and economies of scale, and also because larger institutional environments provided maximum cross-disciplinary fertilisations (i.e. economies of scope).

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The lack of small specialised institutions was a weakness of the Dawkins model. From the mid 1970s onwards the bias of policy makers was against small specialised institutions, for reasons of modernisation, and economies of scale, and also because larger institutional environments provided maximum cross-disciplinary fertilisations (i.e. economies of scope). Successive rationalisations mopped up most of the small arts, media, agriculture, teacher-training and other specialised institutions although smaller theological colleges and others survived in the private sector.

Arguably, some forms of education are better pursued in autonomous specialised institutions without the encumbrance of the larger bureaucracy and its standardised systems and performance requirements and bottom lines often at variance with the goals and culture of the specialised area – providing that the specialised institution is like, say NIDA or some of the Conservatoriums, and does a very good job. Advanced business education or technical training in some fields might also be very effectively pursued in specialised institutions. The reason why such institutions are more likely to develop in the private than the public sector is that it is difficult for public institutions to downsize that far! It is possible that in future some media, the arts, agriculture, advanced business and other units might break away from the public institutions: no doubt, though, this would be messy for both parties.

There are some questions about the future that to some extent are open. What will be the final form of the RQF? Will it be stratification on the basis of research quality all the way, the triumph of the sandstones, or will the policy and funding formula be modified so as to provide for positive discrimination in favour of the IRUs to stabilise and strengthen a research intensive role there; and/or positive discrimination so as to strengthen research in some or all of the ATNs and the other post-1987s?

Another question is whether, after all, I am wrong: perhaps creative organisational structures can be devised that would somehow allow institutions to loosely couple functions so as to have their cake and eat it too; to be research intensive (in part at least) and also maximise revenues for teaching? No doubt many good minds in executive leaders’ offices are thinking about this right now. The habit of trying to be all things to all people is a hard one to break, we are all addicted to growth, and the alternative, redundancy packages, is difficult to contemplate in our sector.

Frankly (and this again is a tough message) I strongly doubt it can be done. I believe that Allan Luke is right, and global market forces dictate that you cannot mix brands in the university sector. Mercedes or BMW can run a line of cheaper versions of the brand without diluting the prestige appeal of their top of the line models; though note that even in the car industry it is a risky strategy. But higher education is a different industry. Unlike the car industry, if too many prestige places are sold, the value of each place becomes diluted, because social scarcity itself is the very good that is being marketed. If you have a large enrolment with low entry threshold it’s not possible to also be a genuine high prestige research player. Or at least, though all would like to obtain more revenues, no university has succeeded in doing it yet.

CONCLUDING REMARKS: SOME STRATEGIC QUESTIONS The picture I have painted is in some respects quite bleak; the options are all tough and painful and even the sandstones are restrained by the extreme scarcity of public funding in their capacity to set a more viable mission. Some of you know me will realize that the developmental scenarios I have described in some respects work against my preferred policies and personal values. A system that in key areas is closing up (at least in terms of social access and participation) rather than opening, is perhaps not as well fitted for the tasks of democratisation and a cosmopolitan culture.

Those of us committed to the democratic mission in a globalising world will need to find ways of leveraging engagement and transparency – positive practices that are foregrounded in this environment - so as to secure the continuing public openness of our best universities; and develop a more productive relationship between research/ scholarship on one hand, and the advance of broad social capacity on the other. Amartya Sen’s excellent book Development as Freedom (2000) discusses ways in which the democratic process can be brought to the strategic centre of a globalising world in which market exchange is one principal medium of human relationships.

Of course, the positive asset that all Australian institutions have is their people resources. Universities achieved amazing things in 1985-2005, particularly in institutional mergers and modernisation (incomplete across the system, but profound and successful in many institutions), and in the global market where the achievement of many universities, and of the system in aggregate, was quite staggering. It is harder to achieve amazing things in a period of extreme scarcity and in some cases, contraction, than a period of continuous growth. Australians are good at leveraging growth by adding new things to the mix, but not as good at developing a wholly original new strategy and replacing the old things with new things. On the other hand, the generational change constituted by the exit of baby boomers in the 2005-2015 period, especially the turnover in the academic ranks, constitutes a great chance to bring in new people resources on a large scale and so innovate more profoundly in programs and research roles than we did in the 1985-2005 period.

Figure 3. Distribution of new ARC Discovery Grants in 2005, by institution

Source: Australian Research Council

Table 6. Position-taking options in the Nelson system: note that some more viable than others

Lucky 8 missions Comment Examples of possible players*

1 High status intensive research Viable model. Limited spots. ‘Many Melbourne, Sydney etc U with global aspirations are called but few are chosen’

2 Specialised research institution Might become viable institutional [CSIRO], ANU with no coursework teaching model in Australia in long term

3 High volume teaching U with some Very popular idea, internal resource QUT, Curtain strong niche research areas tensions, now harder to sustain

4. Smaller sized teaching U with some More viable than 3. But on-going James Cook, Bond U strong niche research areas struggle to secure status

5. High volume teaching U with little Viable model. Many spots. May be CQU, Edith Cowan etc or no research activity many private sector aspirants

6. Smaller regional teaching U with Difficult cost structure, more Southern Cross UNE little or no research activity public funding dependent than most

7. High status liberal arts college, Viable in long term? If so, primarily [watch this space] teaching only in private sector

8. Specialist institution in arts, music, Viable model, mainly private sector. [watch this space] media, agriculture, business, Many spots. Aspirants will emerge distance, education, etc

* in some cases this is highly speculative, and only the author is responsible, especially for column 3! Number 5, a few public institutions are there already and private sector aspirants will appear, some perhaps using a fully commercial approach, like the University of Phoenix; Number 8, though for historical reasons (and only for those reasons) it is a model much more viable in the private sector than the public sector.


public spending

USA, 53

UK,

11

Japan, 5Germany, 5

Canada, 4

France, 4

Sweden, 4

Switzerland, 3

Netherlands, 2

Australia, 2others*

, 7

USA, 28%

UK, 12%

Germ

any, 11%Fran

ce, 1

0%Australia

, 9%

Japan, 4%


Spain, 3%

others, 20%

200

400

600

800

1000

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

0

-20

20

40

60

80

100

120

UM

elb

AN

UU

Syd UN

SW

UQ

ld

Monash

UN

ewc

UA

del UW

AM

acqU

GriffU

QU

TCurU

T

UW

oll UTS LaTrU

Group of 8

other pre-1987

ATNall others



A third question is about whether an Australian university can enter the Global Superleague, the top 30 or so, as many universities in many nations will now be trying to do. I think the answer is “probably, yes”, we are wealthy enough as a nation to match say Canada (Toronto is at 24) and our best universities are already halfway there. We would need more research groups that are unambiguously front rank. The bottom line is that for a university to make it that far it would need time and it would need a special funding deal for research and doctoral training as ANU has; on a greater scale than ANU has it now. It is inconceivable that an Australian university could leverage itself into the world’s top 30 solely through income from full fees, research grants and some increase in philanthropy and corporate funding.

No nation anywhere in the world outside the USA or Oxbridge could do this; Oxbridge has a 900 year history, even in the USA it takes generations to build a front rank research university. There is much more philanthropic and corporate money in the US than Australia will ever have. So if the nation wants Superleague universities the nation must pay. If the present ANU grant to the Research Schools was doubled or tripled it might be able to take the next step. If one of the sandstones was funded accordingly, probably with a different structure to that of ANU, it could do the same (one difficult policy question is deciding which one should be so designated!). Specialised funding on the ANU scale could bring Melbourne close to the top 50 and bring Queensland, Sydney and perhaps more universities into the top 100 at least. It could be done, but a decision to establish special funding arrangements for some research university would require considerable policy acumen and courage.

Finally, there is potential for individual institutions to get smarter about the way they configure the relationship between teaching and research. This could create stronger position-taking options, and perhaps allow some strategic flexibility, not least by postponing of the moment of reckoning on the research role. The teaching-research nexus is an attractive professional ethos, and also looked administratively smart – promising economies of scale and scope – before teaching loads went through the roof in most academic units. Now, the teaching-research nexus simply preserves a vast number of shallow rooted if not nominal “research” positions that don’t deliver and will never deliver in this resource and policy configuration. The time has passed.

The smart move now is to expand the number of research-only positions, along the lie of ANU and also Queensland. A much bigger dedicated research capacity speeds the path to the Jiao Tong top 100 or 50. It also enables the middle level players to maintain a limited but deep capacity in research alongside their teaching functions (though this does not constitute a research intensive function across the board). And it is a mechanism allowing weaker universities to preserve some ‘island’ connections to research and hence also to advanced training for the professions and industry.

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REFERENCES

Bourdieu, Pierre (1988), Homo Academicus, trans. Peter Collier, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Department of Employment, Education and Training, DEST (2005) Selected Higher Education Statistics, accessed 20 August 2005 at http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/publications_resources/statistics/default.htm

The Economist (2005), The brains business, 8 September 2005

Institute for International Education, IIE (2003) Data on US international education, accessed 20 May 2005 at http://www.iie.org/

James, Richard, Baldwin, Gay & McInnis, Craig (1999) Which University? The Factors Influencing the Choices of Prospective Undergraduates, Evaluations and Investigations Program, Higher Education Division (Canberra, DEST) http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/99-3/whichuni.pdf

Luke, Allan, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2005), Interviewed by Four Corners, ABC 27June 2005, accessed 25 September 2005 at http://www.abc.net.au

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD (2004) Internationalisation and Trade in Higher Education: Opportunities and challenges. Paris: OECD

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD (2005) Education at a Glance, OECD, Paris.

Sen, Amartya (2000) Development as Freedom, Anchor Books, New York

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education, SJTUIHE (2005), Academic Ranking of World Universities, accessed 25 September 2005 at http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm

World Bank (2005), data concerning economic and population indicators, accessed on 10 June 2005 at <http://www.worldbank.org/data/countrydata/countrydata.html>

03Inside Out

The papers by Kenn Fisher and Simon Marginson set some pretty interesting targets for those working in the education sphere, both at the micro and macro end of the spectrums of design: from the personal space sitting between teacher and learner and amongst academics, to the strategies for international competition amongst institutions.

There is an implied conversation between their papers. The following sections draw lines between some aspects of this implied conversation. The issues related to a university’s positioning in the international competitive tertiary marketplace and the importance of research have a direct relationship with the need to embrace new pedagogies and, I would argue, the need to consider new models for the academic workplace.

Simon Marginson’s commentary about the importance for research and the impact upon funding, both from governments and industry has direct relevance to Kenn Fisher’s call for new spatial models for learning environments and, as I shall argue, a renewal of collegiality amongst research academics.

Both positions have implications for the masterplanning as well as the microplanning of university campuses. The things we have learnt in recent years about the dynamics of the social space of cities and the social dynamics of these spaces have direct relevance to the qualities of the academic life of universities. The following sections explore aspects of this conversation through the interface of theory and practice.

Inside Out 3.1 Flexible Learning Flexible Working by Ross Donaldson 383.2 Benchmarking and Adding Value by Ross Donaldson 423.3 Masterplanning by Ross Donaldson 483.4 Flexibility in Specialised Buildings for Research 58 by Ross Donaldson and Harry Charalambous

FLEXIBLE LEARNING

Section 3.1 Flexible Learning Flexible Working

FLEXIBLE WORKING

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BY ROSS DONALDSON

“We started from the disciplinary approach, through multidisciplinary to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning. I am interested in hybrid and ambient learning.” Paul Thomas over coffee 7.02.06 Paul is Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Built Environment Art and Design, Curtin University and Artisitic Director BEAP, Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth

IMPACT ON THE NEW PEDAGOGY Whilst there may not yet be a universal movement towards ambient learning, there is a form of pedagogical shift occurring. In essence, this is from a teacher and curriculum centred delivery to a student centred problem solving, collaborative learning environment. It is increasingly social in its form of exchange. Kenn Fisher has described this as an evolution from Mode I to Mode III learning as shown in his diagram (Figure 1). It’s an elegantly simple encapsulation of a powerful idea.

Typically any individual institution will conduct activities which may span across all modes.

THE FLEXIBLE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS (FOLLOWING KENN FISHER) Fundamental to a new approach to students is an appreciation that:

>learning is enhanced where subject theory and material are applicable to immediate project needs. In this context:

>knowledge is produced in teams, across disciplines, is transient

>and is produced by researchers working in collaboration with practitioners who will commercialise or use the knowledge which is produced

With the trend in tertiary education for a dramatic shift in the pedagogical framework for learning, innovative leading institutions are planning for flexibility in their new buildings.

Planning for flexible environments which are responsive to this pedagogical shift will involve:

>Flexibility in the configuration of spaces and the patterns of their arrangement

> Group spaces facilitating collaborative problem solving of project based work

>Breakout spaces adjacent to more formal learning areas where the process can be extended in a less formal and social mode

>Wireless networks to facilitate database access as and when required

>Data projection capabilities to all walls to optimise the flexibility in use of a space and ease of transformation of the space

>Food and drink to enable seamless process to learning and extended hours of activity

>Help desks to enable ready access to support

>Laboratories which take on more of the characteristics of studio environments

>Practical linked with theory

>Study carrels and syndicate rooms which complete the range from extraverted/social work to introverted/private study and reflection

>Service Centres (printing, scanning, photocopying etc.)

One of the keys to this pedagogy is the relationship between computer laboratory and theory rooms (replacing the traditional classroom) and the breakout/ learning commons.

PROOF: AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS SCHOOL, FLINDERS UNIVERSITY SOUTH AUSTRALIA One of the most innovative experiments in the new pedagogy has been at the Australian Science and Mathematics School.

The South Australian Department of Education, together with Flinders University developed the School located on the University campus. The goal is to create an innovative learning environment for upper secondary students specialising in the maths and sciences. The reaching of this goal brought the challenge of working within a framework of new pedagogies and a need for new spatial models.

The new building, adjacent and connected to the faculties of Education and Science, was conceived to facilitate teaching and learning of mathematics and science in a research environment where teachers engage in staff development, where research is carried out into new technology-enhanced pedagogies and where science faculty staff foster in students a willingness to pursue learning and careers in science and mathematics.

A key feature of the school is the break away from the traditional concepts of classrooms and laboratories. These have been replaced by “learning commons” and “learning studios”.

The school design deliberately incorporates large Central Common spaces for circulation, break out from learning commons and studios for formal and informal learning, displays, exhibitions, assemblies and conferences.

The spaces are designed to be student centred, rather than teacher centred, and foster collaborative syndicate and project-based learning. Each student has his or her own “home-base” work station located in one of the learning commons. Students may flexibly organise their “home bases” to meet social or study group needs.

The studios accommodate groups of students working on project-based activities rather than the traditional class-based cohort in laboratories. Special furniture has been designed to meet the flexible nature of these spaces.

Students move around the school, the University campus and the local community, spending significant amounts of time in each, but always able to identify with their “home base” in the school. Eight specialist learning studios cater for the eight learning areas in the South Australian Curriculum, Standards and Accountability Framework.

Past Present Mode II

Future

FIGURE 1 The Changing Learning Paradigm by Dr Kenn Fisher

/Teacher centred/Classes/Directive/Contact/Library/Exam assessment

/Student centred/Individual/Self-directed/Groups/Internet/Continuous assess

/Experiential/Industry links/Social/Flexible/Multi-modal/Skills upgrade

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Section 3.1 Flexible Learning Flexible Working

THE ACADEMIC WORKPLACE The social focus to the exchange of information and knowledge amongst learners is increasingly also becoming the focus of the environment of the academic workplace. At universities, the increasing pressures on the need for research (as Simon Marginson discussed in his paper) has led to a renewed interest in the notion of collegiality and the potential for its unstructured intellectual exchange fostering paradigm shifts and ideas for new research projects.

The idea of the relationship between space and knowledge sharing amongst colleagues in the corporate workplace has been the subject of intensive study for many years. Its applicability to the academic workplace is now of particular interest.

Frank Duffy and his group DEGW, have been writing about the workplace for over twenty years. One of the interesting tools they use to describe different kinds of workplace uses four basic typologies:

HIVE – task specific isolated work CELL – concentrated study DEN – formalised group processes CLUB – transactional knowledge

Put simply, the trend has been steadily away from the hive and cell combination where people work on specific tasks in isolation, through the den and increasingly into the club. The model suggests that the club, being the domain of the unstructured transactional process underpinning the world of business and its deal making is the key to the new model for the creative workplace and innovation. This is perhaps an oversimplification in regard to the academic workplace environment, but it is a useful device for opening discussion on the changing academic workplace.

The majority of academics at tertiary institutions still reside in cells. This, if anything, has increased in recent years with the steady squeeze on common areas which were once the domain of the experience of a collegiate life.

So, a similar theory in the development of ideas amongst students, also applies to university research academics. This is particularly so in their new world where the commercialisation of research, industry partnerships and cash flow through the licensing of IP, industry partnerships and JVs has become the language of University Business Plans.

Qantas Club, Brisbane, Domestic Terminal

PROOF: THE AIRPORT BUSINESS LOUNGE MEETS UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL The knowledge derived from many years of working with corporate clients in new workplaces has been applied to the design of airport business lounges.

These are social workspaces of a very peculiar kind. They are essentially transient in nature and demonstrate spontaneous social/work activity sometimes individually sometimes in groups of varying size. Accessibility to online databases either through wireless or plug-in furniture, availability of a variety of bureau and help desk services as well as food and beverage become a core of these spaces. They incorporate a variety of furniture including lounges, work benches and study carrels. Accessibility to meeting rooms is also important.

This description of airport lounges could also apply to innovative projects such as the University Technology Sydney IT School and the new University of Western Australia Business School.

The UWA Business School has been planned on an “academic cluster” model, replacing the usually un-differentiated and anonymous double loaded corridors of academic offices. Groups of academics with a potential for common research interests occupy open floorplates along with their research assistants, administration assistants and doctoral students. There are workstations for visiting industry partners who will spend intermittent periods of time during the life of the project where their workstation requirements are met in a “hotdesking” mode.

Whilst the majority of academics retain enclosed offices for withdrawal for focussed work, these form the edge of the open common workplace environment facilitating a more collaborative and collegiate focus to the space. This is supplemented with a combination of common meeting rooms and lounges.

The academic cluster floors are grouped around, and are accessed from, the learning core of the building comprising the case study rooms, seminar rooms, computer studios, breakout lounges and café.

The implementation of these environments requires a shift in mindset and therefore a professional development programme where the change has not already occurred. The key therefore is to build the flexibility with the building plan to accommodate future innovations in workplace and learning practices.

University of Western Australia Business School Knowledge Vessels

Flexible Learning Spaces

Breakout Lounges

Academic Cluster Offices

Traditional gun-barrel corridor

University of Western Australia academic cluster offices

University of Western Australia Business School

BENCHMARKING AND ADDING VALUE

Section 3.2 Benchmarking and Adding Value

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BY ROSS DONALDSON

United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain

Woods Bagot’s recent work across a range of tertiary institutions has emphasised the need for maintaining a constant review of spatial standards and opportunities for innovation to keep pace with the rapid changes in the education delivery demands of learning environments.

Changes in modes of learning create a need for new designs for learning spaces and usually for the furniture as well. This has led to dramatic changes in the space standards benchmarking. For example, in Australia the typical area of a classroom has reduced from 2.5m2/student to as low as 1.85m2/student, the computer laboratory from 3.5m2/student to 2.5m2/student and even less.

The continual evolution from traditional delivery to flexible learning has reduced the number of classrooms, computer laboratories and tutorial rooms required. Commensurate with this has been the increased use of breakout lounges and learning commons. Ideally these are wireless enabled for laptops.

In general this trend has not only transformed the type of spaces being designed but overall reduced the gross area of buildings required. The flexibility brought about through the lap top computer and the likely increasing trend for hand-held devices to proliferate has enabled available funding to produce higher quality learning environments.

The optimising of the use of capital resources to maximise the opportunities for educational outcomes involves the active engagement with both academic and administrative staff to understand the detail of the programme for the use of the building facility.

This will involve a rationalisation across the range of uses. In projects such as the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, this process led to a reduction in the nett area of the campus reducing from 200,000m2 to 127,000m2.

A similar analysis for the Southbank Education and Training Precinct in Brisbane Australia, indicated the potential for saving about 30% in the area of the building and to provide a potential saving of A$100million.

These strategies combined with the use of state-of-the-art timetabling software to measure space utilisation levels have in a number of significant Woods Bagot projects, led to space savings of up to 30-50%. This in turn, can be translated into capital savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. In other contexts it has created opportunities to significantly enhance the quality and flexibility of spaces within existing budgets.

Changes in modes of learning create a need for new designs for learning spaces and usually for the furniture as well.

United Arab Emirate University, Al Ain

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CREATING OPPORTUNITIES TO SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCE THE QUALITY AND FLEXIBILITY

OF SPACES WITHIN EXISTING BUDGETS.

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES TO SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCE THE QUALITY AND FLEXIBILITY

OF SPACES WITHIN EXISTING BUDGETS.

Section 3.2 Benchmarking and Adding Value

PROOF: UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA BUSINESS SCHOOLThe new building for the Business School comprising Economics and Commerce and the Graduate School of Management is to be located in the prime landmark site of the very southern edge of the Crawley Campus of the University of Western australia. The School will demonstrate innovations in flexible collaborative learning environments and an open-planned academic cluster approach to offices. These strategies combine to bring a new era in a social focus to learning and a planning strategy for refocusing on research and academic collegiality.

An interrogation of the brief and the space standards, with staff, applying contemporary standards of areas and levels of utilization, yielded opportunities for translating space savings from conventional lecture theatres and classrooms into a variety of flexible learning environments, computer studios and breakout lounges comprising almost 10% of the nett usable space.

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University of Western Australia, Business School

Section 3.3 Masterplanning The cultural significance of universities in

the intellectual and public life of countries has traditionally, in the great universities, been reflected in the unique identity of the architecture. The challenge, therefore, in new universities is to explore ways to use traditional cultural references to find a new architecture which celebrates both the unique culture of a place and its people, as well as to reflect the aspirations for the future.

MASTERPLANNING

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BY ROSS DONALDSON

Project for the masterplan of Health City, Shanghai

Civic Design Great university campuses display a particular quality in their spaces which is similar to great cities. This may involve great architecture, but more particularly, the spaces between the buildings have an urban quality where the buildings collectively create a network of open spaces, squares, gardens and streets which become the primary experience of the campus. The buildings define the “walls” to this series of outdoor “rooms” as in the most memorable cities. These campuses are human in scale and lively in their social character.

The creation of this urbane quality comes through the way the buildings are placed together and this requires careful planning, especially if the buildings themselves are to be secondary in importance to the creation of a great environment. The Masterplan should therefore clearly establish the strategy for the individual buildings to collectively contribute to this image and spatial system.

A first critical step in the creation of the social qualities of the development.

Spatial Hierarchy In keeping with this civic quality, the Masterplan should establish a clear hierarchy of spaces giving prominence to the focal ceremonial spaces and the more human scaled social gathering spaces. The circulation system should emphasise this.

Planning for growth The masterplan should build into its planning strategy some flexibility for future growth. Education and research needs evolve quickly and the layout of the buildings should have some inherent flexibility for where the growth occurs. This may be achieved through the way central common facilities are planned but also through the dimension and configuration of the “lots” where future development will go. The layout should be planning to optimise the overall walking distance to common facilities such as library, laboratories and social and recreational amenities.

Achieving a vision There are two key aspects in achieving the vision. The first is the finesse of the planning layout itself and the second is the design of a development framework for individual buildings ensuring that each one individually contributes its part to the collective vision. The individuals’ part is determined by its place in the whole.

College of the North Atlantic, Qatar, Doha

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Section 3.3 Masterplanning

PROOF: COLLEGE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC, QATAR, DOHA Woods Bagot’s College of the North Atlantic in Qatar, Doha has been conceived within this frame.

These two key design goals which informed the design paradigm for the College of the North Atlantic were:

1. a masterplan where the campus image is dominated by the urban model where the experience of the open space network

2. and where the role of the university in the intellectual and public life is celebrated through the culture specific to the country.

The search for the masterplan for the CNAQ began with investigation of the urban fabric of the old city of Doha, studying old aerial photographs and those parts of the old city still remaining. Old Doha exhibits the characteristic typical of the region: predominantly orthogonal buildings grouped in such a way that the street network comprising the residual space between the buildings is of a meandering, non-orthogonal typology.

The focus in the early stages of the masterplanning came to be these meandering streets wrapping their way through the rectangular courtyard compounds of the houses and the larger courtyard and garden patterns in the forts and palaces.

CULTURAL EXPRESSION The cultural significance of universities in the intellectual and public life of countries has traditionally, in the great universities, been reflected in the unique identity of the architecture.

The challenge, therefore, in new universities is to explore ways to use traditional cultural references to find a new architecture which celebrates both the unique culture of a place and its people, as well as reflecting the aspirations for the future.

These typical spatial morphologies have their conceptual equivalents in some of the traditional weavings of the region from the pre-western era.

Figure-ground study abstractions of these patterns revealed a conceptual frame for the masterplan where the dominant form was the open space system linking courtyard gardens around which the various colleges of the campus were arranged. This has generated a campus plan where the open space network within, dominates the composition and the individual buildings are the walls to these spaces. All the primary circulation routes engage with the courtyards. In this way the mental map of the campus composed out of a memory of the individual spaces and their street-like connections. This is just as it was in the old city.

The actual circulation system was itself generated from a mapping of the old city street network, morphed into a three dimensional “wrap” carving its way through the fabric of the college buildings.

The emphasis on the open space network is also appropriate for Doha where for five or six months of the year during the winter months the climate is very pleasant.

The architecture of the buildings themselves is driven primarily through the need for solar protection for the other six months. On the north and south elevations external to the campus, the civic scale and the opportunity for greater openness in the screening generated a kind of super scale mushrabya screen derived from the Arabic kufic text form of the word ‘Qatar’. Within the campus this device varies in scale according the size of the space adjacent to the building being screened.

On the east and west elevations the design of the screening has been developed from studies of other traditional weaving patterns and achieves 90% solid screening. The energy gains from the passive design system has been significant in a place where the summer temperatures are extreme.

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Section 3.3 Masterplanning

A NEW ARCHITECTURE WHICH CELEBRATES BOTH THE UNIQUE CULTURE OF A PLACE AND ITS PEOPLE

College of the North Atlantic, Qatar, Doha

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FLEXIBILITY IN SPECIALISED BUILDINGS

FOR RESEARCH

Section 3.4 Flexibility for the Future: Specialised Buildings

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BY ROSS DONALDSON AND HARRY CHARALAMBOUS

OPEN FLOOR PLATES The grouping of vertical transport and services risers together with plant rooms to maximise the openness of the floorplate, will allow maximum long term flexibility in the building’s adaptability to future emerging needs. This will enable maximum flexibility of adapting room layouts to suit evolving needs. Structural design of floor plates should also allow a variety of loading configurations, with lightweight internal walls and partitions contributing to maximising this adaptability.

The innovations in modes of learning have equally critical relevance for scientific research buildings. Projects start and finish, teams grow and shrink. Equipment is continually evolving.

Given the importance of planning for an optimum degree of “future proofing”, two of the most important considerations are floor plate structural grids and keeping vertical transport and services risers free of an open floor plate as far as possible. Two Woods Bagot projects are used here to illustrate these issues: Monash University and the Qatar Science and Technology Park.

Simon Marginson’s paper spoke of the critical importance of research in the future positioning of universities in the competitive marketplace. Kenn Fisher sees flexibility of spaces as being central to adapting to new modes of learning and, by implication, research.

In the field of scientific research, flexibility is a particularly important consideration. Research laboratories represent a huge capital investment for a university. The combination of rapid change in research practices, new technologies and increasingly sophisticated equipment with short shelf lives, amplifies the pressures on university administrators to leverage the highest return on their capital. Making capital work is the new language of the university boardroom (senate). The architect must ensure that buildings are flexible to facilitate adaptation to this shifting landscape rather than physically inhibit it.

GRIDS Today’s standards and space rationalisation will often lead to an 8.4x8.4m grid for general teaching spaces (there is greater flexibility in this if below deck carparking is not a consideration); 6.6 x 7.2m works very well for flexibility in laboratory buildings, whereas 7.2 x 7.2m is better for hospital wards. Woods Bagot Monash Health Research Precinct Project provides a useful example of this.


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Woods Bagot’s recent experience in lab design has noted a trend towards more open plan spaces allowing several related research groups to occupy the one area.

Monash University Science, Technology, Research and Innovation Precinct (STRIP)

MONASH HEALTH RESEARCH PRECINCT MELBOURNE In 2002, Woods Bagot was approached to design a research facility at Monash Medical Centre on the outskirts of Melbourne. The brief was to provide a building containing laboratory space, offices and laboratory support areas (to be constructed in 2 phases) housing around 4500m2 and 5500m2 of accommodation respectively.

The centre is a public and teaching hospital which is also associated with Monash University. This arrangement encourages the co-location of research institutes combining research and treatment in one campus.

The brief requested an extension to the existing Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development (MIRD), which houses scientists “shared” by the university and hospital who carry out research into both human and animal reproduction and diseases. With the increase in stem cell and genetics research, the MIRD had outgrown their existing accommodation.

PLANNING The existing MIRD, was based on a 6.6 x 7.2m planning grid. Whilst 6.0m is the minimum practical grid module, Woods Bagot no longer recommend its use for medical laboratories. The increasing size and quantity of lab equipment means that workspaces could not be planned efficiently whilst maintaining the minimum space requirements for acceptable laboratory design. Using the 6.6m module allowed efficient use of space and compliance with design codes and standards. This dimension also allows for the current trend towards “open-plan” labs and lab benches to be 800mm deep to accommodate computer hardware and the majority of bench top based equipment.

Where hospital ward-type training facilities are to be provided, a 7.2 x 7.2 m grid works to accommodate patient beds and en-suites. This module was used for the Health Sciences building at La Trobe University’s Wodonga campus which contains mock-up bed wards, a treatment room, and a nurses’ station/utility room. This larger grid suits teaching spaces and also permits the use of robotics in specialist labs – with the associated increase in space standards.

Although the new building, Monash Health Research Project (MHRP) Stage 1 (2003-4) was designed to be an extension of the MIRD, no specific research users had been identified at the briefing and design stages. The new building was designed with MIRD’s 6.6m x 7.2m module as generic space to be as flexible as possible (i.e. suitable for labs, teaching, and office space). Provision was made in the Woods Bagot’s masterplan for construction in two stages.

In comparison, Monash University Science, Technology, Research and Innovation Precinct (STRIP) Stage 1, also a generic research building design, has a 7.2m x 12.0m module to allow for open labs, specialist labs, and open plan offices in column- free spaces.

Woods Bagot’s recent experience in lab design has noted a trend towards more open plan spaces allowing several related research groups to occupy the one area. Different groups can share equipment and services, and as one group contracts in size, other groups may expand. Various research groups may be complimentary and interact to share information and ideas. Bench space needs to be “swappable” so that it can be used by a variety of groups. Ideally labs should be situated on the north in the northern hemisphere and the south side of the building in the southern hemisphere to avoid direct sunlight on benches.

The site configuration encountered at MHRP (and similarly for STRIP 1) dictated that the buildings should be designed with labs/offices on the long window sides (east and west) with a central strip for shared accommodation. The shared zone allows for vertical circulation and cores, toilets, major services risers, cold and equipment rooms, wash-up spaces, stores, etc. The areas around lifts are designed to be more attractive and spacious than the average lift lobby to encourage interaction of different groups. Provision was made for easy access to meeting rooms, lounge, coffee shop etc so people cross paths and can have somewhere for informal discussions within the building.

Offices can be accommodated in a number of spaces, whether grouped together or on the side of the lab or around the central cores where small rooms can be arranged around a shaft. If the smaller, cellular rooms are within the central strip, the perimeter can be more open for greater flexibility.

If beds and equipment are to be moved around, preferred minimum widths for main corridors should not be less than 2.1m for beds, 1.8m for labs, and 1.5m for office areas.

SERVICES Main plant spaces are generally on the roof. The main electrical and piped services are reticulated within the ceilings and drop down at columns. Ducts are grouped together into the larger risers. Care has to be taken with the location of fume hoods so that dedicated exhausts can rise easily to roof level where they are vented individually into atmosphere. Medical gases can be housed on the roof or in ancillary spaces around the perimeter and reticulated to where they are required. If housed in the roof plantroom, a service lift should extend to the appropriate level for safety/ease of delivery. Power and data services are becoming increasingly more important requiring to be fully accessible and adaptable as computers and computerised equipment play an ever greater role in research benchwork, etc.

Risers generally should be designed to be as flexible as possible. Items subject to regular maintenance should be within corridor spaces, not labs in order to minimise disruption.


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QATAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PARK, DOHA On the world stage of innovative models for industry research and development in an education context, a spectacular example is under construction in Doha, Qatar.

The Qatar Science and Technology Park is the research and development interface between the new Education City project and the world of industry and the commercialisation of knowledge.

As a high end incubator, the specialised laboratories element of the project not only had to meet the needs and expectations of leading international industry research partners, it had to be readily adaptable to future needs in a rapidly evolving field.

INTERSTITIAL FLOORS One of the features of QSTP is the use of full depth interstitial plant floors.

A 27m column free floorplate has been created through trusses with a depth equivalent to the required plantroom floor to floor height. The main plant thus sits between to two laboratory floors servicing directly above or below. Specialised plant requirements for special equipment areas can also be placed at the appropriate position minimising duct runs.

This also gives the flexibility to raise the ceiling height, between the trusses, in the vicinity of special equipment requiring the additional ceiling height. Up to 6m clear ceiling height is possible between the trusses.

Plant maintenance and alterations to services reticulation to local areas within the floorplate can be carried out without disruption to the remainder of the laboratories on the floor. Any maintenance and retrofitting can be carried out without compromising the operational floor security.

PERISTITIAL WALLS All duct risers are kept to the outside of the building within a peristitial wall zone. All the backbone reticulation of services are thus kept off the floorplate zone, providing inherent flexibility to the configuring of laboratory floors and optimising their future adaptability to changing research needs (Figure 1).

FIGURE 1 Qatar Science and Technology Park, Doha Peristitial walls section

This further enhances the flexibility for maintenance and refitting providing access without compromising security.The peristitial zones also provide an alternative means of emergency egress through façade again creating flexibility for the floorplate configuration unencumbered by emergency egress pathways, further enhancing security.

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04Sustainable Learning Environments

4.1 Sustainable Learning Environments 66 by John Liddiard and Michael Michelides4.2 The Future of the Library by Mark Kelly 76

STUDY CARRELS

WORKROOMS

HEATING AND COOLING

TEMPERATURE

NATURAL VENTILATION

WORKSTATIONS

BREAKOUT SPACES

AMBIENT AND TASK LIGHTING

04Sustainable Learning Environments

4.1 Sustainable Learning Environments 66 by John Liddiard and Michael Michelides4.2 The Future of the Library by Mark Kelly 76

SUSTAINABLE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

STUDIO ENVIRONMENTS

CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS

ENERGY AND USAGE

FLEXIBILITY

FUNCTIONALITY

SUSTAINABLE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

BY JOHN LIDDIARD & MICHAEL MICHELIDES

MODERN TERTIARY EDUCATION MAKES INCREASING USE OF FLEXIBLE SPACES – AREAS WHICH CAN BE USED FOR IMPROMPTU SEMINARS, INFORMAL DISCUSSIONS OR HOT-DESK WORKSTATIONS. THE KEY TO CREATING A SUCCESSFUL BUILDING WILL BE IN FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN FLEXIBILITY AND FUNCTIONALITY.

Section 4 Sustainable Learning Environments

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ESD AND ENERGY USAGE

The design needs to identify:

> areas that require minimum and or 24hr energy demands

> the degree of user flexibility with manual and automatic control requirement

> areas which can be naturally ventilated

> areas where the temperature must be controlled closely

> areas where natural daylight is beneficial

> areas where direct sunlight would be detrimental

> areas which need to be co-located for building services efficiency (this may not align with their location for operational and resourcing efficiencies)

> areas which need to be separated to prevent noise or for privacy and security

An holistic design needs to be able to combine the varying requirements of each space in a rational way, looking for energy savings, and balancing practicality, comfort, usability, constructability and cost. The main objective is to create natural, well lit, internal environments ranging from 18degC-25degC for most of the year, that provide building users with a comfortable indoor climate whilst using a modest level of purpose designed services installation.

ESD and Energy Usage

The seemingly ubiquitous notion of sustainability is often reduced to a limited idea of energy efficiency. Whilst the conservation of energy and other limited resources such as water is of undoubted importance, the broadest use of “sustainability” covers a wider sphere of issues including social and economic sustainability, as well as environmental: the so-called “triple bottom line”.

The sustainable learning workplace

An optimum workplace of any kind should be housed within a building that promotes a sense of well being. To develop an effective design it is necessary to understand the needs of each area and each user group; to develop a considered and balanced holistic approach rather than applying an all-encompassing blanket design over all areas. Modern tertiary education makes increasing use of flexible spaces – areas which can be used for impromptu seminars, informal discussions or hot-desk workstations. The key to creating a successful building will be finding the right balance between flexibility and functionality.

Overly simplistic ideas of environmental quality may also draw inappropriate guidelines for natural lighting. Within many building types there are areas where natural lighting or ventilation will be not just unwelcome but positively discouraged. Medical laboratories, for example, often need controlled environmental conditions where temperature and light are regulated and specific to the labs. Similarly, temperature and humidity need to be monitored in computer rooms to maintain optimum operating conditions. There is an immediate conflict between direct light and the computer screen and the laboratory bench.

Specialised buildings set up all sorts of conflicts between environmental and operational sustainability.

Research labs often require very controlled environmental conditions with 100% ducted supply air and 100% extract exhaust with highly filtered air quality being maintained above a predetermined level. Natural, unfiltered, uncontrolled ventilation is incompatible with the cleanliness required in labs, although it can be used in offices. Natural ventilation can also be used in circulation spaces and some thought should be given to achieving a comfort level appropriate for the space – circulation spaces may be warmer than working spaces. For example, an entrance atrium space may be 27 degrees (with outside temp at 35 degrees) and be mechanically ventilated rather than fully air-conditioned to give a sense of coolness as one enters the atrium from the heat outside. The laboratory accommodation, however, should be 22 degrees, dust and noise free, and air conditioned.

Demonstrated energy savings and detailed well considered services design will not only lead to improved comfort and productivity but also contribute to an overall sense of well being for the building users.

This commitment to implementing sound ESD and energy use principles has produced this broad sense of well-being in projects as diverse as the Australian Maths and Science School at Flinders University in Adelaide and the College of Technology, Doha. In Doha where the summer conditions are extreme, a design concept was developed to optimise outlook whilst providing close to 100% shading for the six months of extreme heat. At the ASMS, data produced by the monitoring systems measuring environmental conditions the building’s active responses can be accessed by the students.

Section 4 Sustainable learning environments

LIGHTING

THE STARTING POINT FOR THE LIGHTING DESIGN SHOULD BE AN ANALYSIS OF THE WAY IN WHICH EACH SPACE IS TO BE USED.

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The starting point for the lighting design should be an analysis of the way in which each space is to be used.

Typical considerations include:

> the function of the space and how much light the activity requires

> the desirability of direct daylight

> sun shelves, sun scoops, skylights, atria, light wells or other passive devices to push the daylight to deeper spaces in the building

> the appropriate level of artificial lighting

> the augmenting of ambient lighting with task lighting

> the appropriate comfort level for the space and the prevention of glare

> user safety and lighting levels

The results of the above analysis will rarely provide a simple answer. More commonly the results will provide a range within which the lighting levels should fall.

There are a number of factors which can be incorporated at the early stage of the design, such as:

> photoelectric cells monitoring and automatically adjusting artificial lights to supplement natural light

> 3D natural light analysis software to control glare and excessive heat

> light coloured internal finishes to maximize natural light

> high performance solar control glazing, shading devices and blinds to control sun glare

> light wells to bring light deep into the building

> two-tube light fittings; the second tube illuminating when light falls below a pre-set level

> smart-card passes or sensors which monitor personnel movements and activate the lighting zones which the individual is likely to need, during and after hours

> high efficiency lamp technology which offers increased light quality, energy efficiency and longevity, ultimately reducing energy and maintenance costs

Ventilation can play a large part in the user’s perceived comfort levels. People generally can tolerate higher temperatures if there is air movement than they can in static conditions. An overall reduction in the demand for artificial cooling can be realised through careful zoning and natural ventilation.

Consideration must be given to:

>areas where natural ventilation is appropriate

>spaces where opening a window may be preferable to turning on air conditioning

>specific operable windows for optimum cross ventilation from prevailing breezes

>night ventilation – time operated mechanical exhaust with up to 15 air changes per hour

>security / insect screening to allow for night purging to reduce heat build-up

>thermal stacks to draw fresh air through the building to vent at high level

>zoning of uses – circulation spaces generally can be warmer than workplaces

VENTILATION


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VENTILATION CAN PLAY A LARGE PART IN THE USER’S PERCEIVED COMFORT LEVELS. PEOPLE GENERALLY CAN TOLERATE HIGHER TEMPERATURES IF THERE IS AIR MOVEMENT THAN THEY CAN IN STATIC CONDITIONS.

Heating and Cooling

Controlling temperature is one of the most energy intensive aspects of building services. The energy required to maintain comfort is closely linked to strategies adopted for ventilation and solar orientation – preventing heat entering or building up reduces the need for artificial cooling. Typically, it is more efficient to make small adjustments to temperature at regular intervals rather than trying to change large volumes of air. This can be addressed in part through the use of building insulation and the placement of massive materials (masonry or concrete) to act as heat stores.

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˚F = (1.8 * ˚C)+32˚C= ˚F – 32 1.8 K=˚C + 273


The amount of heating or cooling required can be influenced by:

> orientation of the building – for example controlled “North 30 degrees East” for passive solar gain (in the southern hemisphere)

> controlling the area of external glazing: north elevation to 40% of façade, south elevation to 20% of façade, west elevation contains no glazing if possible, east elevation to 10% of façade

> avoiding un-shaded roof mounted skylights

> shading of internal courtyards and façades

> zoning of spaces and activities to control temperature locally, not building-wide

> tuning hybrid airconditioning systems to suit operational needs, for example: combinations of central AHUs for special/24hr labs, and fan coils for general areas and offices

> considering innovations such as chilled beams technology (good for large floor plates such as teaching and office spaces)

> using manual or auto mixed-mode air conditioning using mechanical cooling and natural ventilation

> locating thermal mass for effective stabilising retained energy status

> creating external shaded areas to the north providing 100% shade in summer and 80% shade in winter and by providing full summer shade to exposed east and west walls where possible

> using appropriate deciduous landscaping to shade exposed western walls

> in hot climates, providing soft landscaping around the building to reduce reflected heat from paving

> similarly, minimising radiant heat through insulated roof panels at a consistent thickness

> CAD modelling exact calculations of sun angles on all building facades

> considering window positioning pertaining to cross-ventilation and passive solar design

> reviewing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of heat exchangers

> reviewing hot water usage to determine whether solar water heating will be effective

> use of motion sensors and timers to activate air conditioning outside normal operating hours

> use of smart-card passes which monitor personnel movements and activates the air conditioning zones which the individual is likely to need

HEATING AND COOLING

˚F = (1.8 * ˚C)+32˚C= ˚F – 32 1.8 K=˚C + 273

PROOF: UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA BUSINESS SCHOOL

Chilled Beam Technology

Chilled beams are a low energy, healthy method of air-conditioning buildings.

Chilled beams are low energy users because they require much lower volumes of conditioned air than conventional systems. This results in minimal use of fan energy which is normally a major cost in running buildings. In addition the chilled water circulating through the beams is at a higher temperature than that used for conventional air-conditioning systems and consequently requires less energy to produce.

As chilled beams use small volumes of air, the ductwork required for distribution is considerably smaller than that required for VAV systems. Smaller ductwork sections result in less requirement for ceiling space and a consequent reduction in floor to floor heights which reduces overall building fabric cost.

The use of less “conditioned” air also results in less plant-room area requirement and hence less overall floor plan area. With chilled beam systems conditioned air is de-humidified in air-handling rooms before being distributed via ductwork and circulated through the beams.

Chilled beams are a healthy air-conditioning system because they utilise a “one-pass” system. Air is not re-circulated through the building as in conventional systems. After it has passed through the chilled beam it is exhausted from the building and consequently can’t carry air-borne bacteria to other parts of the building.

There are two types of chilled beams:

> Active Beams

> Passive Beams

Active beams use small volumes of de-humidified air ducted from air-handling rooms and passed over the beams to encourage air circulation.

Passive beams rely on convection to create air movement over the beams.

Both active and passive beams comprise “coils” of pipe-work through which chilled water circulates and cools air passing over the coils. Chilled beams can be hidden in the ceiling space or exposed as part of the ceiling design. Where they are hidden a perforated ceiling is used. Where they are exposed they can be purpose designed and may also accommodate other ceiling elements such as light fittings, smoke detectors, speakers etc.

Chilled beams systems can be manufactured and installed to pre-determined modules matching fit-out requirements. Blanking panels can be incorporated into lengths of chilled beams to facilitate the incorporation of partition walls. This results in less difficulty with office churn as the system does not rely on individual air diffusers which must be relocated to suit office and work-station configurations.

PROOF: AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE AND MATHS SCHOOL Energy monitoring for student study

The Australian Science and Maths School was conceived to show leadership in science and technology. The building has been designed to incorporate best practice in environmentally sustainable design and enable the building to be utilised as an educational tool.

Students are able to develop an understanding of how buildings, people and the natural environment interact.

The ecologically sustainable design principles of reducing electrical energy consumption and the production of greenhouse gas emissions as they pertain to the engineering services system have been harnessed in the concept solutions via the inclusion of the following features:-

> Mixed mode air conditioning system integrating natural ventilation with refrigeration based air conditioning systems.

The natural ventilation system incorporates louvres within the facades of the “Learning Common” areas and high level louvres in the atrium roof structure.

> A Building Management System (BMS) is incorporated to control the mechanical services including the natural ventilation system and its usage is optimised at times when conditions are suitable, to provide the mixed mode operation. The control system ensures that natural ventilation ventilates the space at times of mild external ambient temperatures and enables the air conditioning system to be utilised to heat or cool the air only when it is required.

> Individual air conditioning units are incorporated to service each separate area, enabling flexible operation and minimising unnecessary operation of systems serving unoccupied areas. The BMS enables flexible control of these systems.

> Air conditioning systems incorporate cassette type indoor units with “Variable Refrigerant” technology and “Inverter” type compressor motors which provide high energy efficiency, particularly at part load operation. Heat recovery type systems are provided to selected areas to provide further energy efficiency at times when some areas require cooling and other areas require heating. The systems operate using green refrigeration R407c.

> The installation of variable speed drives to Fume Cupboard exhaust fans enables reduction in fan operating power at times when lower exhaust airflow rates are required as well as reducing the amount of make-up air required to be provided by the air conditioning system.

> High efficiency luminaires incorporating “T5” flourescent tubes with luminaire operation controlled by occupancy detectors.

> A building façade incorporating high performance “Low Emission” glazing and extensive shading elements minimises building thermal loads and hence, energy consumption of air conditioning equipment, as well as minimising internal glare levels.

> Carpark lighting is controlled by daylight sensors and time scheduling.

> Dual water reticulation is incorporated to serve water closet flushing separately and enable reclaimed water to be used for this purpose.

> Solar boosting of hot water generation via a roof mounted solar collector.

> Stormwater pollutants from the site is trapped before stormwater is discharged to Sturt Creek. The carpark is used as a holding basin to avoid increased run off rates to Sturt Creek during high rainfall periods.

> High speed variable speed drive overhead traction lift.

The Building Management System incorporates inputs from various measurement devices around the building to enable experimentation to be conducted on building elements. Access is available to the Building Management System and measurements can be recorded and down-loaded from devices such as temperature sensors, electrical energy meters, light meters, strain gauges and the like, as well as standard building control features such as the air conditioning system controls. A demonstration photovoltaic solar collector has also been incorporated.

The information can be trend logged and provided in a practical format useful for demonstrating the scientific behavior of the building elements, including:-

> Demonstration of expansion of the steel roof structure due to rise in temperature utilising temperature sensors and displacement sensors mounted upon a structural roof member.

> Demonstration of the thermal resistance of the building fabric utilising temperature sensors placed at various locations through building fabric profiles.

> Comparison of indoor and outdoor lighting levels and indoor lighting energy consumption at various levels of internal lighting control/switching.

The school will be a catalyst for advances in teacher preparation and professional development through education, business and industry partnerships using new and emerging technologies and enterprise initiatives.

Through these concepts, the building itself thus becomes a learning tool for the school and enable students to develop an understanding of how buildings, people and the natural environment interact. The output from the building management system is linked to the school Intranet, providing information on a daily basis about the performance of the building’s active and passive systems.


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WATER CONSERVATION IS INCREASINGLY SEEN AS A CRITICAL DESIGN STRATEGY. IT IS A LIMITED RESOURCE AND THE REAL COST OF WATER IS NOW SEEN AS A VITAL ELEMENT IN ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FOR BOTH BUILDINGS AND LANDSCAPE.

WATER USAGE

Water conservation is increasingly seen as a critical design strategy. It is a limited resource and the real cost of water is now seen as a vital element in environmentally sustainable design for both buildings and landscape.

Opportunities for grey-water recycling should now be examined as a matter of course. Water from hand basins can be collected, filtered to reduce contaminants and used for toilet flushing or irrigation. Using grey water for flushing reduces both the demand for potable water and the amount of water entering the sewerage system. With appropriate treatment, grey water can also be used for cooling towers. Recycled grey water coupled with the use of a low water use planting strategy will greatly reduce any demand on the potable water supply. Grey-water and/or rainwater collection from roof areas can be used for irrigating planting.

Consideration of black water recycling through on-site treatment for irrigation has both social and environmental/health implications. Social context of the project will greatly influence discussion about the re-use of black water. In some parts of the world, the concept is not easily embraced.

THE FUTURE OF THE LIBRARY BY MARK KELLY


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“Reports of the death of the library have been greatly exaggerated”

Long live the Library!

Contrary to predictions that with rapid and widespread growth of information and communications technology (ICT), there would be little need to borrow books as information could be accessed from a home computer, libraries are in fact thriving.

Those responsible for the delivery of library buildings and services have been faced with the challenge that more is required of them than just the safekeeping of books. Whilst libraries have changed in response to ICT development, they have also successfully reinvented themselves, providing more services and utilising a variety of media. More people are visiting libraries than before and finding them to be a place to take part in a range of community activities.

Another key reason that library services do have a future is simple: now, and in the foreseeable future, people will need to upgrade their skills or learn new ones many times in the course of their working - and even domestic and recreational - lives. Education will no longer be a one-off exercise at the outset of life, but a continuous process of adaptation, self-development and vocational re-skilling that will go on until people are well into their eighties, and even beyond.

RETAINING RELEVANCE AND PURPOSE

Public libraries are responding in their development to the changes in cultural needs and interests at a time when these changes are occurring at a rapid rate, Four elements affecting the future design of libraries need to be considered and given appropriate weight in order to provide a successful facility:-

>the people for whom the library service is intended (along with the staff providing the service),

>the programme of services, events and activities required to fulfil that obligation,

>the partners with whom the library authority might wish to undertake a joint development or venture,

>And the place of the library itself (along with the spaces it offers to meet its designated programme most efficiently and effectively).

These trends point to the development of an increasingly bespoke library service, with libraries offering their own individual programmes based on the services most appropriate to the target user-groups. This view of the future presents many opportunities for libraries to play an increasingly significant role in social, intellectual, cultural and civic life. It also creates a number of potential dilemmas for those directly involved in the management and development of library services, as well as politicians, policy-makers, and many others who share an interest in their future.

Family-friendly design

Amongst the most loyal groups of library users are parents with young children and the elderly. The library remains a socially inclusive institution and this needs to be reflected in issues of physical access and family-friendly design. Encouraging people to stay longer, and use more than one facility, means providing toilets, refreshments, and a sense of security. The library is becoming as much a learning centre, a homework club and a leisure venue for young people as it is a place where books are borrowed and returned in as little time as possible.

Embracing technology

All library facilities, of whatever size, will need to incorporate ICT and online services. All ICT equipment comes with specific design and construction requirements of its own: cabling, networking, lighting, heat- displacement, security, and so on. Design also needs to take on board matters of monitoring and surveillance of ICT use; the difficult question of appropriate and inappropriate uses, or the suitability of ICT for both individual and group use. The technology will continue to evolve: large-scale, cabled screens and monitors may shortly be replaced by wireless laptops and portables. Hot-desking has already arrived in some libraries.

Increasingly, libraries are investing in self-service terminals which can ‘check out’ stock automatically. However, some designers find security gates send out the wrong message to users and potential users - referring to the “turnstile mentality” - and prefer to find other ways of preventing theft, notably through the use of CCTV and security staff, as well as individual security cases for videos, CDs and DVDs.

A TIME OF CHANGE AND FLEXIBILITY

Libraries are changing rapidly, and it is likely that the development of new library service buildings, either in dedicated buildings of their own, or in conjunction with other kinds of services, is likely to continue at a faster pace than for many years.

This change in ways of thinking about library buildings and services is not simply a desperate attempt to appear “relevant”. Social and demographic trends today underwrite the renewed importance of such civic spaces, where new forms of multi-cultural citizenship are evoked through high-quality and well-designed collective provision, coupled with an ethos of mutual respect which the library has traditionally engendered and is now doing so again.

In the end it is the guiding principle of the library as a democratic space wherein to free your mind, which remains the key organising principle of the public library service; the spaces and places which local authorities and others choose to construct and inhabit all flow from that historic intellectual ideal.

KEY DESIGN ELEMENTS

Library design is moving away from the traditional hierarchy of forms, consisting of an imposing municipal central library in the town centre, along with a series of smaller branch libraries in the suburbs. There is evidence to suggest that is gradually being replaced by a hierarchy of functions, as more individualised and bespoke libraries become more common, offering services tailored to specific target groups of users. With this shift comes the need for sensitive management of key potential conflicts of design, function and ethos:

The library is a public space (and place)

Historically, library design has emphasised its public nature with imposing entrances, high ceilings and domed roofs, and also with a pronounced relationship to the street outside. Some libraries have tiers of steps in front of them, where people sit in fine weather to chat or take a break from their studies inside. The steps in front of the City of Melbourne Library, for example, are famous as a meeting place; so too were the steps outside the old British Library. Although, some of the more grandiose or monumental aspects of library architecture may be abandoned in the future, the requirement to emphasise the civic quality of the library space and its relationship to the street outside, remains a design priority.

The library as a second home

The relationship between the library and the home is changing as more library catalogues go online, enabling people to order, reserve or renew library stock, and even belong to electronic newsgroups established by libraries for particular educational or cultural interest groups. As a result the library is being de-institutionalised, and becoming more like a club or leisure centre.

In Sweden they talk of the public library as being “the living room in the city” or even “the town salon”. Interior design and furnishing can help create a more domestic, club-like sense of membership and belonging: a home from home.

A window on the world

Historically, libraries have offered people a chance to escape, to explore other worlds through books, journals, and forms of self-education, and their design and architecture often reflected this. The design of libraries in future should also reflect this sense of uplift, of pleasure, and possibilities of life-enhancement. Too many today still seem weighed down in dull municipalism, particularly in poorer areas.

Greater visual transparency between interior and exterior worlds now seems to be a mark of a more open and democratic culture.

Time-tabling access and circulation

Another important consideration with regard to library design is the need to be able to section off or close some areas at different times of the day or night to meet other needs, particularly when library services are shared with other services; or the provision of community meeting rooms, where access to toilets and catering facilities is required without having to open up a whole building. Design needs to take into account matters of “time-management” and the allocation of space and patterns of circulation which reflect both short-term and long-term uses of the library.

Finding a way through the labyrinth

By their very nature, libraries are full of signs and references to arcane classificatory systems, often confusing to lay readers. The importance of clear patterns of circulation, of architectural and spatial legibility, and of coherent and attractive signage cannot be over-estimated. In this regard, the new library and learning centre at La Trobe in Victoria, Australia, is exemplary: as you enter the doors, the whole library and its sections are laid out before you, clearly sign-posted and labelled, all of which allows the first-time visitor to quickly grasp and understand the services offered.

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2006

“It‘s over 50˚C and 100% humidity!”

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Woods Bagot Public Paper #2 Education Futures August 2006

Published by WB Research PressThe Beacon Podium Level 1,3 Southgate Avenue, SouthbankMELBOURNE VIC 3000Printed in August, 2006 ISBN : 0-9775409-0-1 Editorial Team Ross Donaldson; Kenn Fisher; Simon Marginson; Michael Michelides; John Liddiard; Mark Kelly; Lucy MoloneyCreative Direction & Design Cornwell Design

For more information contactRoss DonaldsonFleet HouseCrn King & Murray StreetPERTH Western Australia 6001woodsbagot.com

Education Futures Ross Donaldson

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