Can Architecture Inspire Learning?

When creating inspiring and engaging learning environments for students it is important to pay attention to the importance of high-quality interior design and architecture. The way in which students choose to study is shifting all the time, with a keen focus now being placed on shared spaces that enable collaborative learning. Architecture and interior design has a key role in creating inviting, flexible educational spaces that caters for these changing methods of learning and ensures that both institutions and their students get the best possible results.

Why should a university invest in academic learning spaces?

Dark, uninspiring library spaces are fast becoming a thing of the past. Universities are increasingly investing in modernisation programmes as competition for student intake continues to increase. One such institution is Teesside University. Our library refurbishment began in 2012 and completed after five years of carefully-planned phased work which has fully transformed the library into a state-of-the-art immersive learning facility.

How to transform a university library into an aspirational learning environment

The library refurbishment was one of the most complex pieces of work undertaken as part the university’s ‘Campus Heart’ programme, a wider redevelopment programme on which we have worked with them for more than ten years.

The university’s brief was to reinvent the building to create an inviting and aspirational space creating informal, formal, individual and group study zones to inspire a positive learning environment for students.

To capture that, the final designs aimed to regenerate both the library’s internal environment as well as remodel the building itself, introducing new walls and ventilation systems and structural work throughout.