There is, literally, a science to building science buildings.

“We can change people’s behavior by the way buildings are planned and designed,” explains architect Michael Reagan of the firm Burt Hill.

Student retention, graduation rates, and job placement are becoming more important metrics for success than the traditional measure of square foot per person, according to Reagan and fellow architect Alexander Wing, also of Burt Hill.

Traditionally, higher learning institutions have used standard space allocation metrics when deciding how much should be built. Some institutions mandate a metric of 50 sf per person, for example. This metric tends to hamstring designers, says Reagan. A good place to start is 60 sf per person, but the range for higher education institutions goes from 45 sf to 200.

“Square foot per person may not be best way to evaluate effectiveness,” says Reagan. Institutions are starting to recognize this fact, he adds. “How effective is the space at doing the job—helping people to learn and reach outcomes—is just as important.”

These five attributes aren’t the only ones that distinguish contemporary science teaching facilities today. Many other trends display changing pedagogy including smaller class sizes, a proliferation of instruments, and ubiquitous computing. Today there are computers on every bench, on every desk, on every instrument. Even larger universities are striving for smaller class sizes. And the amount of instrumentation has increased, allowing for more hands-on opportunities.

Hands-on Learning

As education’s focus has shifted from how faculty teach to how students learn, hands-on instruction has become a major objective.

“Before, there was not very much participatory-type learning. Now you have to do it to learn it,” says Reagan.

At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., Doherty Hall is an addition to an existing building, where University officials wanted large, open studio laboratories—with support spaces, instruments, chemical storage area, write-up areas—in close proximity to encourage hands-on learning. The result was a lab with 70 sf per student station, somewhat higher than the typical allotment, says Wing.

Doherty Hall’s design supports interaction between students and faculty not found in a typical research lab. The layout includes shared fume hoods that encourage collaboration. Equipment is on mobile carts that can be transported to the multiple lab levels in the building on a moment’s notice.

“For Carnegie Mellon, hands-on means full scale experimentation, and yet at the same time they want to run very large class sizes,” says Wing.

Hands-on can be achieved on a smaller scale, too. At Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., its idea of hands-on was to give students the ability to conduct a research project at their lab benches. The teaching labs are designed for about 24 students. Marist opted for less expensive snorkels (fume eliminators shaped like elephant trunks) for each student. Each pair of students gets a laptop computer on their bench for analyzing data.  Other research and class instruments are located on the labs’ perimeter. In all, the labs are an efficient use of 57 sf per student in the teaching environment, says Reagan.

At Miami University in Ohio, the new School of Engineering and Applied Science building includes a hands-on program in paper making. A machine makes paper from barrels of pulp on a pilot-sized scale. Next door to the larger paper-making machine is a small, bench-scale paper-making process where every student gets his or her own setup.

Miami University’s quality assurance lab is another example where learning outcomes trumped the traditional space allocation guidelines. In the lab, each person gets 110 sf, because every student has two places. Students can either be at their lab bench in the laboratory or at the conference table where laboratory-related lectures and discussions are held. This allows for hands-on learning and the easy access between spaces saves time, too.

“It’s obviously a space-intensive operation, but in this case, we would rather measure learning outcomes than square feet per person,” says Reagan.

Collaboration

Collaboration is closely related to hands-on learning, says Wing.

“One of the key features of science teaching today is the idea that you build teams; teams to do projects together,” he says. “That builds on the hands-on aspect, and also begins to build a research culture in the institution—a culture of science—and that’s important.”

At Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania, the public institution is designed from the ground up. The University wants to embody a collaborative culture where students work and develop projects together—in a high-rise building.

The resulting design links together learning environments on the upper floors by a series of atria. At the heart of the atria are “learning studios,” spaces that can be used unscheduled.  Support spaces are nearby. An instructor can begin a project in a classroom and then send students out to work at these spaces.

“It’s a public space.  It’s a space you really can’t avoid as you’re moving through the building,” explains Wing. “A whole catalog of things can be provided in this space.  We get activity into the space, and it can be seen going on all the time.”

Additional suites are located between labs and classrooms at Harrisburg. They differ from the public “learning studios” in that they separate the classroom from the lab and allow for separate scheduling.  The design allows students to go out and talk about their work yet be in close proximity to the laboratory activities.

At Carnegie Mellon, science lab students are clustered in groups of six to eight. The layout encourages collaboration, and instructors can move in the space and talk to smaller groups.

“It’s daunting to think of 60 students in an organic chemistry lab all at once, but the fact that this can be broken down into smaller-scale teams is really what makes it an effective collaboration environment,” says Wing.

Interaction

Interaction, while similar to collaboration, is more of an unstructured, rather than a prescribed, way of working collaboratively, explains Reagan. Unstructured interactions encourage learning in a different way; a student may be more comfortable or more receptive discussing classroom information with a peer, for example.

Such interaction can take place in a variety of space sizes and locations. Adding these more casual, open spaces to a building’s design can be a hard sell because of the expense, but more and more institutions are beginning to support this attribute.

“I think we are all beginning to understand the value of the unstructured opportunities in learning environments,” says Reagan.

A new science building at Cornell University stresses interaction. The building is an addition to an existing chemistry and chemical biology building, and is also tied to a physics building.

“The atria space is a significant part of the project both in space and in cost, and it’s there specifically to allow the students in the instructional labs to interact with each other,” he explains. “It also provides a venue for the undergraduates to interact with the researchers who are going to occupy the rest of the building. On one side, there is a pass-through for students to access another part of the campus.”

Cornell’s new building will have a small café with a mixture of hard tables where people can interact and soft seating where they can just “hang out” before or after class.

“Even Cornell University, a fairly large university, recognizes the critical nature of interactions in the overall scheme of things,” says Reagan.

At Marist College, there’s not much space, so small areas are provided outside the faculty offices. Two tables seat up to eight people. Interaction also involves a teaching lab interacting with another teaching lab, with the area purposely designed so there’s an opening between the two labs.

At Hiram College, a small institution in Ohio, interaction was the heart and soul of the science building.  In a “learning lounge” the college can hold formal and informal classes and programs. The two-story space accommodates larger gatherings but also provides amenities where smaller interactions can occur.

“Interaction takes many different forms, many different shapes, depending on the size of the college or university, but there’s always some element of interaction in the science facilities that we see,” says Reagan. “Institutions need to think about how even insignificant elements like stairs can generate interaction.”

Visibility

Another way colleges and universities are encouraging more participation in the sciences is by making them more visible. “Putting science on display” can be as simple as windows that provide a peek into the inner workings, says Wing.

Visibility has to be planned. A lab must be designed so the walls aren’t crowded with equipment, for example, so you can see into the space. This may involve sacrificing wall space.

“It’s going to have an impact on how you plan other aspects of your laboratory if, in fact, you’re going to take this on,” explains Wing.

At Carnegie Mellon, Doherty Hall actually put the “guts” of the laboratory on display in an exterior cavity that can be viewed by all who pass by.

“Instead of putting the duct work in a closed shaft, we designed it to be on display, and it really has become an icon for the Chemistry Department at Carnegie Mellon,” says Wing, adding that the University’s science enrollments increased by 50 to 60 percent.

Adaptability

The fifth sought-after facility attribute, adaptability, can also be defined as flexibility or mobility. Again, each institution determines the extent of this need on a case-by-case basis.

At Hiram College, adaptability meant being able to change desks and benches when needed. The benches are plugged into the floor, and either on a week by week or semester to semester basis, tables can be rearranged.

Instrument benches on wheels provided adaptability for Carnegie Mellon. At Miami University, adaptability was as simple as providing connections for electricity without having a tangle of lines on the floor. Electric outlets that are basically on a track lighting system on the ceiling were installed.  The system allows for easy movement of equipment.

“Depending on your budget, adaptability can mean merely providing some cable trays or having some very movable, flexible casework,” Reagan says.

In conclusion, these five attributes—hands-on learning, collaboration, interaction, visibility and adaptability—can be achieved no matter the size of the institution or its budget. Larger spaces, in general, can provide more flexibility than smaller ones. The important thing for those planning new buildings is to be aware of their budget and needs going into a project, and to work with the architects to devise a solution that meets both.

By Taitia Shelow

We welcome your Questions and Comments

Copyright 2008 Tradeline Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ISSN: 1096-4894