The Graduate School aims to bring together research students, aspiring researchers and research active colleagues together in a new environment designed to support collaboration. The space has versatility and flexibility at the heart and has been created as an area for debate and brainstorming through to networking and relaxing.
Speaking at the University, Ken Giannini said: "It was a pleasure to meet with the leaders of the Graduate School learning spaces project and to see the work that has already been implemented together with their future plans. My talk on ‘Blurring the Boundaries’ has a direct relevance to what they are trying to achieve. I believe the design of learning environments is heavily influenced by current design ideas being developed in the world of workplace, hospitality and even residential, with each sector influenced by the others.
“The new Graduate School environment has the look and feel of a business lounge, which of course has its roots in the Hotel and Airport sectors. I hope that the presentation of Scott Brownrigg’s Google project provided some inspiring ideas for new types of work settings, and illustrated how these can be fun and practical at the same time."
Dr Bela Arora, who has been responsible for the Graduate School learning spaces project at the University said: “It is great that Ken has given us his backing for what we are trying to do with the Graduate School. There has always been a temptation in universities to go for plain, easy to manage spaces, but this doesn’t consider the loss of creativity. We have tried to create a different type of space that puts developing learning first and recognises stages in a collaborative research journey.
“With the Graduate School, we are trying to create a space that people remember and find exciting. Even the few people who don’t like the bright red walls and modern furniture still end up talking about it – I would bet that it’s the room in the University that they remember the most.”