Space Strategies for the New Learning Landscape (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE - 0 views
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AnnMarie Furbur on 13 Mar 10" Space Strategies for the New Learning Landscape ©2009 Shirley Dugdale EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 44, no. 2 (March/April 2009) Space Strategies for the New Learning Landscape Shirley Dugdale Shirley Dugdale, AIA, is Director of Learning Environments for DEGW North America, an international design consultancy. She focuses on space planning to help educational institutions transform. Comments on this article can be sent to the author at and/or can be posted to the web via the link at the bottom of this page. This is an interesting and challenging time for planners of physical spaces in education. In the past decade, Learning has become richer and more complex: technology is generating myriad new ways of Learning and the tools to support them; students are seeking more collaborative and immersive experiences; the demands of interdisciplinary research are stimulating new academic relationships and interactions; and Learning is just as likely to happen in virtual space as in physical space. With the support of distributed access to digital resources and mobile devices, Learning and discovery can happen anywhere. This global information environment in which learners are immersed requires new perspectives and fresh approaches for campus planning. At DEGW (http://www.degw.com/), we have been responding to this challenge by developing a "Learning Landscape" approach.1 The Learning Landscape is the total context for students' Learning experiences and the diverse landscape of Learning settings available today-from specialized to multipurpose, from formal to informal, and from physical to virtual. The goal of the Learning Landscape approach is to acknowledge this richness and maximize encounters among people, places, and ideas, just as a vibrant urban environment does. Applying a learner-centered approach, campuses need to be conceived as "networks" of places for Learning, discovery, and discourse between students, faculty, staff, and the w