Hall of Residence design by KI
A few years ago, something quietly happened that had a fundamental impact on the nature of higher education real estate: the average price of a laptop dipped below that of a desktop, for the first time. Mobility was finally here, and affordable for the masses. Not too long after, things became very cheap, with the arrival of netbooks.
As a consequence, the student halls of residence is starting to become a very different place. Ten years ago, when new halls were created or old halls remodelled, they were often based around four key spaces: a bedroom (usually containing a desk space), the bathroom (sometimes en-suite), the kitchen or communal canteen, and a social lounge. Many also installed a number of fixed PCs, on the university network, usually in surplus space.
A small but growing number of students had their own desktop PCs, installed in their bedrooms. Few had laptops, and universities consequently needed to provide large amounts of IT rooms around the campus.
Not now. Cheap mobile technology has not only allowed students to spend longer periods studying in their own rooms as opposed to going to a library or IT room, but also to meet and collaborate with others in informal communal spaces.
The student living space needs therefore to be compact (to be cost effective for the university to provide) but also comfortable to work in, in a way never required before. The living space is the work space, and a critical part of making this multi-function work is providing good furniture options that support both of these things both in look and feel. They need to be robust but comfortable, affordable but aesthetically pleasing.
This needs to be augmented with appropriate services, in particular access to power (and lots of it, for the next few years anyway), and a fast wi-fi network.
The social space, of course, is also the work space: communal space may increasingly become an area for collaborative working.
This is all important, because unlike secondary schools or even further education, at university with the introduction of tuition fees and the wide availability of choice of universities to go to, the student has become a customer, and the university has begun to think about the concept of the customer experience across its estate, from the faculty to the student support services, to the library, to the hall of residence. A core part of that experience is supporting learning, not just the social life, of the student.
It can be invested in by universities by decreasing the amount of fixed IT rooms on the campus towards providing smaller hubs near core facilities.
But most importantly, this is about supporting students in working smarter. That is exactly what furniture is: a support mechanism for activities. Get it right, and you can change the very nature of a space.
This text was developed for KI for an editorial in University Business.
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