Conference: “Cruïlles d'Aprenentatge”

At the “Cruïlles d'Aprenentatge”, experiences in teaching innovation from recognised national and international universities were presented and there will be a debate about the learning spaces of the future.

Vice-Rector Joan Gispets welcomes the attendees, frames the event within the strategy of Galàxia Aprenentatge UPC and explains the choice of the programme, which connects with a professional journey of this 2023 and with inspiring experiences for the community.

The first speaker of the day is:

Alice Bodanzky,
Project Manager at the Library Learning Centre, TU Delft Library.

The Library is one of the most emblematic spaces on the campus and was conceived 25 years ago. Its spaces show the transformation of teaching: open and flexible spaces.

Activate the book wall

The new work project allows the iconic wall to now be the brand of the library. They explore the way to display the content: it is a captivating experience. Related to activities. They promote that students propose ways to activate the wall. Among the shelves, spaces are interspersed to be and read.

They have space for discussion processes and meetings, with students, faculty… Meetings of the entire community, different experts who share knowledge throughout the community.

They take advantage of the cone located in the centre of the library and its large garden area to project and live the experience of the library. Another way to activate the space is to visualise the data from the library’s collections in an interactive and easy-to-access way. They have an innovative and well-equipped Multimedia Centre at the Library, self-service.

They facilitate access to any material through these counters that allow scanning, accessing information through screens, etc. It is an interactive and attractive system to work and easily access all the information that is available to all users.

They have also greatly reinforced the relaxation and disconnection spaces and the students have an access system to the services that allows them great autonomy.

The Library as an iconic symbol of the campus. Veruscka Xavier Filgueira, specialist in digital learning at the Aalto University School of Science.

They work in spaces where digital learning is developed. They are the best university of art, very well known for the digitisation and teacher training where they work the digital tools at the university.

After the pandemic, they have opted to do face-to-face tutorials to help return to campus. They are clear that they do not want to become a virtual university and give priority to student assistance. They bet on a good hybrid model of teaching and have noticed an increase in students.

The role in the class has changed

Recorded class, where classmates follow the face-to-face class virtually (microphones in the classroom). They have:

• Classrooms to work together with work tables, which they have taken advantage of from the classrooms with unevenness.
• Classroom for collaborative work: digital blackboards, different tables… allows many possibilities to work and connect.
• Small study rooms, for small groups: reservation required. They are both for faculty and students and have the same priority to reserve.

Débora Domingo Calabuig, 
Vice-Rector for Sustainable Development of the UPV Campuses

The main UPV campus in Valencia was built in the 1970s. The competition began in 1969 in which the campus was conceived as a city formed by 4 schools (corresponding to 4 blocks). The philosophy of the competition was that people would live on campus, an idea that was being experimented with at universities in France at the same time. The architectural strategy is a mat-building (a carpet building that extends across the territory). At that time the campus was on the outskirts of the city and so the project intended to be a city in itself.

A platform was made at the first floor level, pedestrian and where the students lived. Before, you arrived by car and the car park was on the ground floor, where the laboratories were also located. The classrooms and common spaces were located on the first floor. The faculty departments were located on the second floor. Thus, the faculty’s route was vertical: they left the car on the ground floor, had the classrooms on the first floor and the departments on the second. On the other hand, the student’s route was centred on the first floor, the noble one.

This campus was a mat-building in the Mediterranean, as it had a clear centre with an agora that brought together common services: cafeteria, bookstore, space for concerts and demonstrations, etc.

Currently, the main UPV campus has changed and grown.

In fact, there are 3 campuses. Specifically, the current Vera campus has doubled and the other two that have been created are smaller in format.

Now the city has already reached the campus and it has had to be closed (without knowing exactly if it has been the best solution). There are 100 buildings, occupying an extension of 1.5 km x 0.5 km. It is no longer mainly accessed by car, or at least that is the intention. The main level has been lowered to level 0, but the platform has been maintained on the first floor.

The desire to spend the day on campus has been preserved, both for faculty and students. There are many sports services (swimming pool, directed activities…), cafeteria, pharmacy, supermarket, library, nursery… There are many spaces for informal learning that motivate you to stay all day on campus.

They are working on the ecological transition. It is a challenge to adapt a campus conceived in the 1970s, which did not take sustainability into account. There are different groups that are working on it in different ways. To begin with, more than stagnant groups, they are constellations: interested people who meet with others to carry out different actions. It is necessary to train the new generations and do a bottom-up.

They are controlling emissions, the carbon footprint, decarbonisation, etc. The most effective action is to promote a change in mobility, rather than putting up solar panels. A large number of staff travel from less than 4 km and could travel on foot, by bicycle or by public transport. This is one of the main struggles.

They are working on rehabilitating the campus, without the need to build new buildings.

Another challenge is to be a connector between the city and the Valencian orchard.

To make a sustainable campus, people must be taken care of: they must stay to live on campus, and make it their own. They work on the ecological transition with workshops and extracurricular activities. They also have a weekly market of organic products. They also have the example of the Living LAB (an agreement with the city council) which is a decarbonisation laboratory to replicate and scale outside, in the city of Valencia itself.

Pablo Campos Calvo-Sotelo,  
Professor of Architectural Composition at Universidad San Pablo-CEU.

“Architecture does not exist, what exists is the relationship of people to space.”

“Architecture must be didactic, but especially teaching, university architecture.” This type of architecture can be defined as a didactic campus. These typologies encompass 4 different scales: from the city, to the campus (or rather university precinct), to the agora, to the classroom.

The campus is a model, but it is not the only one, as some could be defined as teaching polygons. We must be creative with little budget to achieve formative spaces. We can use chairs in the form of an amphitheatre outside to encourage debate in an underutilised space, or leave installations visible to encourage learning, or show the different layers of a rehabilitation, or enable a marginal space as a study classroom, etc.

The goal is to achieve active pieces that enhance learning.

Corridors can be occupied with tables that were going to be thrown away, and achieve informal spaces.

The limit of the classroom is blurring. Its boundaries are becoming more transparent, or even disappearing.

A room in a museum can be seen as a space without use, but also as an ideal space for reflection, to achieve introspection.

With few resources, an innovation room can be made with 3 screens to encourage the active attitude of the students, who must necessarily relate what is projected on each screen, instead of being able to have a passive attitude.

To take into account sustainability on campuses, seven dimensions must be considered: institutional, social, environmental, energy, economic, educational and cultural, architectural, and health and well-being.

There are four phases for the transformation of university spaces. To transform a campus, first research must be done, then good community participation must be achieved, the action must be planned and finally implemented.

The definition of the limits of the campuses must be taken into account. More learning spaces can be implemented in marginal spaces, outside the buildings, and even beyond the apparent limits of the university precinct.

The library as a social space, for dance, as an auditorium, with a cafeteria, with an outdoor area to be, with vegetation. The library gives space to the city. The goal is to be a Roman forum.

It is a building designed to improve the lives of students, who are the people who will make our future possible.

Round Table: Returning to face-to-face after the pandemic: what incentives do we offer?

Faculty decide how to teach their subject and have 3 options to do so, each option linked to a different type of space. The aim is to bring the best of virtual and face-to-face teaching, with a hybrid model tied to the type of classrooms they use and the commitment to flipped workshops.

Combining hybrid learning. It is necessary to find a balance between digital and face-to-face learning, but not to think of a paradigm shift (Pablo)

The goal is to motivate the student: it goes through a communication process.

Multidisciplinary student teams/groups like “spontaneous generation” that participate in international projects (Solar Decathlon, Formula student). There is unregulated learning. For example, the challenge of building a sustainable house where students of architecture, communication, engineering… come together. It achieves cross-curricular and life learning through the project. The problem is that it is extracurricular, unregulated learning. (Débora)

The library service subsidises a course with students to work on the wall. (Alise)

First, there is the design of the subjects and then the ideal space is chosen. (Pablo)

Achieving a sense of belonging for the student. Promote interdisciplinarity. Promote free space where there is interaction between the university community. Most faculty leave after class because the campus does not contribute anything to them. There needs to be an identification of the person with the institution. There are 3 campuses in the USA that have such a sense of belonging that they even have a cemetery where Alumni wish to be buried. (Pablo)

Turning libraries into the heart of universities. (Dídac) It is the space of knowledge and has a symbolic function that represents knowledge. (Pablo) Space where different disciplines that live together in the same space intersect (Alice).

In Catalonia, at the University, we are at the back of the queue when it comes to reflection on teaching spaces. From nurseries, Primary and Secondary have known how to review spaces, open up to the city and incorporate new methodologies linked to spaces. The university world still has this challenge. (Jordi Ros, Mar Carrió)

Students must have a desire to learn, but so must faculty, and they must convey it. Faculty need to be inspired. (Débora)

In a short time, qualifications will count for nothing, companies do not want titles but people who know how to apply knowledge and have been trained to do so. (Débora)

Closure. Joan Gispets, Vice-Rector for University Policy at UPC

The phase of “Galàxia” that we are now starting is a pilgrimage through the campuses, to promote debate on improving learning and the relationship with spaces. The goal of the phase that is now beginning is to co-design the learning process and start thinking about how spaces need to adapt.

2-hour work sessions are planned (open to the community, participatory), and then meetings with management teams, departments and student delegations.

A catalogue of teaching methodologies and a series of inspiring experiences from the UPC are to be shown.

An innovation in teaching call different from those previously made by the ICE will open. There will be much more budget and resources. The call proposes that those centres interested in rethinking the organisation of some degree can present themselves in order to have resources and support in this task.

Jordi Ros, Vice-Rector of Architecture, Infrastructure and Territory at UPC

UPC is explained through the history of its buildings. Vice-Rector Ros explains that an initiative is also underway to rethink the spaces of the UPC campuses made by students. From January, workshops will be held by Architecture students and other degrees to rethink the classrooms, the currently underutilised spaces and thus improve the learning environments.