This conference, sponsored by the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education, was held in Cambridge, MA, April 11-13, 2002.

Conference Sessions

Overview

Lifelong Learning—What Do We Expect?

The Campus as Classroom: Issues and Opportunities

Sustaining and Promoting an Educational Facilities Design

Keynote: Lifelong Learning on a 21st-Century Campus

Learning from Living

Technology: The Unifier in a Multidiscipline Educational Environment

Equity and Excellence-Making an Urban School System Work

Sustainability-Massachusetts Sustainable Schools Pilot Program

Planning at MIT

Tours at MIT

Dreyfus Chemistry Building

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Distance Learning at MIT

TEAL Room (Technology Enabled Active Learning)

Albert and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center

Simmons Hall Undergraduate Dormitory

Ray and Maria Stata Center

The Campus as Classroom: Issues and Opportunities
Richard Dober, AICP, Senior Consultant, Dober, Lidsky, Craig & Associates

Higher education is affecting all other levels of schools, said Richard Dober. Many have beautiful architecture, landmark designs, and an extraordinary sense of space. Some use vernacular architecture; some offer a very human scale.

Then there are those schools that fall short of the mark.

"Higher ed is a fundamental cultural resource," Dober said. It produces the innovators, the Nobel prize winners, the writers, the architects, the athletes. But the cost of higher education is also rising, available funds are shrinking, and the middle class is struggling to pay for it all.

Higher education architecture has two aspects: the megascale, meaning its participation in the development of the edutropolis; and the microscale, which is the sense of place and the college experience it promotes.

What is the edutropolis? "It is a metro-wide network of post secondary institutes supporting a multiplicity of educational, social, economic, and cultural missions," explained Dober. A school's cafes, restaurants, legal aid, social spaces, and athletics, among many other features, enhance the community.

On-campus housing is also very critical because college-age students deserve better than bland high rises. Also, housing for other types of students could be made available on the campus. On-campus housing should have better architecture than public housing, perhaps incorporating textured designs, human scale, a broken façade, and mixed-use with shops below.

Microscale involves branding, which can be achieved through architecture. Branding clarifies the institutional mission, the relevancy of a degree program, the quality of student services, the range of extracurricular activities, and a sense of place.

You can create branding through a regional look, by using local materials, or by incorporating local features or images that evoke the school's focus. You can also create branding through things such as trees, flowers, courtyards, and coffee houses.

Unfortunately, branding sometimes engenders peacock architecture—fanciness for its own sake—which we need to avoid.

Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.