UNIversalräume(TU Berlin/Udk) feat “evaluation methods in learning space design”

Within the “Raumlabore” project, students, teaching staff and employees from five different universities jointly conceived, designed, evaluated and repeatedly redesigned physical learning spaces over a period of 18 to 21 months in order to develop future-oriented, effective and user-centered learning spaces. These projects created experimental spaces to promote the urgently needed active further development of learning spaces.

In this context, the term “spatial laboratory” refers to a space in which spatial design and its interaction with innovative, learner-centered learning and teaching formats is actively investigated and evaluated. Students and teachers are both researchers and researched, and the room design is constantly being changed and adapted. The term “room lab” is therefore used to describe a space that is continuously designed, changed and further developed by the users. This use of space differs from traditional seminar rooms, study rooms and lecture halls, which usually provide a single - non-changing - room setting for use and are not or only to a limited extent geared towards active learning space design by students and lecturers. Room laboratories are primarily integrated directly into teaching in the sense of real laboratories and often address formal and informal settings, but can also be used separately as a laboratory for teaching/learning settings for learning space research and further education.

As part of the funding initiative, the Technische Universität Berlin and the Berlin University of the Arts have jointly developed an innovative spatial concept. The Old Reading Room was transformed into a spatial laboratory and thus into a platform for interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research. The design of the spatial laboratory was a collaborative process in which various stakeholders were involved from the outset. Students, teachers and experts from architecture, media education and other disciplines contributed their perspectives. Workshops, surveys and regular meetings were used to identify needs and develop solutions together. This participatory approach created a non-hierarchical way of working based on openness and collaboration. See also New Practice in Art and Technology.

The methods collected are particularly suitable in a spatial laboratory setting in the sense of a real laboratory, but can also be used in spatial projects that are aimed at a new concept or one-off redesign and are not designed for continuous further development. At the same time, the methods are an invitation to carry out low-threshold room evaluations and to consider needs-based room adaptation in the use of all learning space projects. This contributes to impact-oriented space offerings and allows us to respond to the emerging needs of students and future-oriented teaching.

University staff and lecturers who are involved in both the interaction with students and the planning processes for learning spaces are particularly well placed to place and implement these methods. Participatory interdisciplinary planning processes should ideally go hand in hand with organization-wide concepts and think university development, sustainability, digitalization strategy and learning space design together.

The handbook (in German) can be downloaded here.