Future Learning Spaces in Higher Education

At a time of significant estates development in UK universities, there is a pressing need to provide innovative spaces for teaching that meet the needs of 21st-century learners. It has been widely recognised that space – whether physical or virtual, individual or shared – can have an important impact on student learning. Recognising the changing educational requirements of increasingly diverse student populations, higher education institutions have responded with increasingly tailored, student-centred, approaches to learning space design. As we have come to understand more about today’s learners, alongside the ready availability of digital technology, our own notions of what comprises effective learning spaces have also changed. New strategies for enabling learning and accommodating the multiple demands on today’s students have necessitated a fundamental rethink of the use, design, and location of learning spaces. Increasingly, approaches to learning are required to be flexible and networked, bringing together formal and informal activities in a seamless environment that recognises that learning can take place any time, in physical and virtual spaces.