Know this: new university design

In the last decade, the number of students in higher education worldwide grew by about 4.2% annually. In order to keep up with this trend, universities are having to provide larger and more modern spaces for learning and research, allowing students to learn and the staff to collaborate more effectively. This can result in new hybrid buildings that contain seminar rooms and libraries alongside lecture halls and laboratories, but also in more flexible spaces that can change their function over time.

The Centre Building at the LSE (London School of Economics) by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners provides all of these functions and more. Consisting of two shifted, rectangular blocks of different heights, the building is made up of a regular steel-framed structure, which creates a large degree of programmatic flexibility necessary for an ever-changing education. The lower levels contain a library, auditorium, café and lecture halls; while classrooms and study spaces are located along a public, glazed atrium that extends upwards and snakes its way through the building.

Bjarke Ingels Group took a more formal approach when designing the Isenberg School of Management Business Innovation Hub. The new facility serves as an extension to an existing building within the University of Massachusetts' Amherst campus, and provides additional spaces for social activities as well as education. Its simple, circular layout is enlivened by a sweeping facade consisting of copper-clad elements that create an impressive entrance lobby inside.

The changing nature of learning and access to information means that academic research libraries are changing too. Charles Library at Temple University in Philadelphia, designed by the Norwegian-American practice Snøhetta, combines a large, domed library space clad in timber with a high-tech automated book repository. It also contains a number of flexible study and seminar spaces used for education and a green roof, which along with the planted, porous plaza surrounding the building at ground level, helps improve the university's stormwater management.

Education is now more than ever about creating more collaborative spaces where students and researchers from different disciplines can learn from each other and collaborate. HASSELL has designed the new University of Melbourne Life Sciences Precinct which serves the schools of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences; Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences; and the School of Science. Here, students and staff will share laboratory space, as well as lecture rooms, classrooms and even social spaces. The building's exterior is clad in glass to allow for increased daylight penetration, while on the inside, timber cladding and a large central atrium create a welcoming, natural environment.

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