Workshops at the SKG's first Forum produced a series of design sketches.

Three break out sessions at the first SKG Forum on May 28 have produced the raw materials for a range of design prototypes for university learning spaces.

Designing more effective collaborative learning spaces, facilitated by Matthew Riddle and Dr Rosaria Burchielli (Law and Management, La Trobe) used a technique dubbed ‘beyond the comfort zone’ to look at design for collaborative learning spaces. The workshop was based on the real world scenario in which a Business Ethics subject is being redesigned to make use of an Enquiry Based Learning (EBL) approach. Students were asked to trade places with staff during a trial of a pedagogical design, and followed by reflective exercises by participants and the group as a whole to develop learning space designs.

Sunburnt wifi: what makes a really great outdoor learning space? was facilitated by Prof Gráinne Conole (IET, Open University) and Prof Mike Keppell (Charles Sturt University). This session investigated how we can plan outdoor learning spaces in a way that meets the needs of students now and in the future and produced some very imaginative ideas.

The corners of our minds – how should we be using eddy spaces was facilitated by Rob Bienvenu from Kneeler Design and focussed on the design of informal learning spaces. When designing learning spaces in universities, some valuable spaces are left out of consideration, yet students use them all the time. “Eddy spaces” exist in corridors, lobbies, and in the strangest nooks and crannies of university buildings. These informal learning spaces are rarely well designed and are frequently inadequate for the purpose.