As well as getting excited about new university buildings, we need to think with care about the activities that fill these buildings. It’s the interactions between people that create innovation, not simply new buildings. Earlier this year I was asked to visit a university-led knowledge district that looked great on its website. The homepage presented a…
Traditionally, university campuses are realms of quiet reason; they are ordered and elegant environments. Facades of classical columns or polished minimalist constructions reinforce this pleasant, “academic” atmosphere. However, campuses are with surprisingly frequency places of revelry and anarchy too – and for good reason. Shouldn’t campus architecture engage with the wild, disruptive aspects of university…
The best opportunities for architects to express their skills and challenge the possibilities of built form are provided today not by the Church or the State – but by universities. Unlike cathedrals, museums or railway stations, university buildings tend to be private, shielding both brilliant ideas and brilliant architecture from a wider public. Whilst it’s…
Against the turmoil of the American election and unrest elsewhere from workers who feel “left behind”, inspiration for a different future can be found in the establishment of London’s Birkbeck Collge. 1823 was a one of the more civilized years in British history. The death penalty was abolished for offences other than murder or treason,…
Are plans to build “living campuses”, campuses that buzz with people and ideas, by increasing the quantity of student accommodation offered on campuses realistic? In this blog, I argue that much bolder approaches are needed; if student accommodation is the answer, housing for thousands, rather than hundreds, of students needs built on campus. Fig 1.…
The wild trend is everywhere today, from wild swimming to foraging for food in the wild. Wild thinking has a place amongst this revival, delighting us and reminding us of our natural creative abilities. Over the past year I have visited some highly intelligent fields. In the midst of thickly woven hedgerows and weather-worn sheep,…
Just because you are in the middle, you don’t have to be average. This is the conclusion I drew after a handful of days spent at the Urban Universities conference hosted by The Collaborative Centre for the Built Environment at the University of Northampton this July. The conference focused on the partnerships being established between universities…
Whilst you can call “Internet of Things” an emerging business sector, it’s more accurate to call it a paradigm shift. The coupling together of smart, sensing devices, such as our mobile phones or thermostats at home – or smart tags on boxes of goods being delivered to shops, or roadside sensors measuring traffic flows –…
Innovation hubs need to become more visible on KTH’s Stockholm campus to support the creation of a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Data on income inequalities in American cities released last month by the Brookings Institute makes uncomfortable reading for those of us who trumpet the emergence of “knowledge cities” as a sustainable solution for our future prosperity. The Brookings Institute gathered data on income distributions from America’s largest 50 cities, comparing the income of those on…
Its quarter to seven in the evening and the streets of Cambridge are busy with black-gowned Fellows swooping like bats into their Colleges. What force has torn these great minds away from their books and compelled them to attend dinner? After six years at a Cambridge College, I can promise you that its not the…
Manchester, England, the Eighties. As factory after factory closed, the city’s future looked bleak. What’s the purpose of an industrial city when there’s no longer a demand for industry? The city wore down, becoming a mere ghost of its former swaggering self. Manchester’s success story that decade was alternative rock band The Smiths and little…
Last month the London School of Economics (LSE) announced the winner of an architectural competition for a building to house its new Global Centre for Social Sciences. I was prepared to dislike any winner on principle – on the principle that a university shouldn’t spend 90 million pounds on a new building – in which,…
The University of Cambridge is a place known, quite rightly, for the scale of its ambitions. It takes on big research challenges and builds big – have a look at the new North West Cambridge site. Behind the success of any great endeavour are a thousand small, well-crafted actions. This new door at the university…
“You see, its not only about seeing in, its about seeing out,” says my guide around the new Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London. If he didn’t look so artistically fragile, I would have hug him. For weeks now I’ve been walking around London’s many university campuses attempting to understand how…
Building on Ideas 