Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

February 2005 Volume 3 (1)

Interior design

The library that talks

The interior design will be the most important factor for the success of the new Learning Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University. Debby Raven discusses its development with the team who won the contract.

"Environment has a powerful effect on people. The interior design will make or break it - down to the graphics and the chairs.” Its quite appropriate then that Glasgow Caledonian University has appointed one of the Scotland’s most dynamic design companies to create the interior of its new Learning Centre.

"Open, flexible space is key to the whole design of the new building,” continues Les Watson, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University. “You can get so much more for your money if you can achieve changes using furniture flexibly, without having to change the fabric of the building. This makes the interior design even more crucial.”

CuriousOranj won the interior contract towards the end of last year. Their retail and leisure interiors are well know around Glasgow, but so too is their acclaimed design for the REAL Learning Centres in 33 of the city’s public libraries. They have also completed library refurbishments of Springburn and Anniesland and, more pertinent to this contract, in 2001 designed Glasgow Caledonian’s REAL Learning Café on the ground floor of the university’s library.

The new Learning Centre, due to open in September, is the second phase of a £40m overall campus development programme. The Centre will have four floors, with a glass atrium, linked by a copper-clad tubular tower holding a spiral staircase and lift from which entry is gained to each level.

It is based, says Les Watson, on a concept he calls Student Access to Services. “The main premise is that a student shouldn’t have to understand how the university functions. The Learning Centre should act as a one-stop-shop for information, advice and counselling. It has been developed by closely researching and questioning what people do as learners. Discussion between students, their tutors and fellow students takes up a lot of the learning process. This is the other half of the learning experience from more formal teaching. How people learn has changed, there is more project-based, problem-solving, group work - all of which was rarely being reflected in libraries.”

Acknowledging another revolution in learning - the move from paper to online access - two thirds of the bookstock is to be in compact shelving housed at the top of the building. The rest of the shelving will be mostly no more than four shelves high, to maintain the spacious feel of the place. The new Centre will have double the number of workspaces from 900 to 1,800: 600 of these will be in a 2,500 sq ft ground floor ‘services mall’, featuring wireless facilities, self-issue and return points, service desks and a café. It will also serve as a main thoroughfare, with five entrances and exits.

Les Watson was attracted to CuriousOranj’s concept of “the building as a city” with zones, districts and nodes for communication. For example, the ground floor services mall is the ‘market place’. “Shelving, counters, satellite counters and service pods are laid out in a specific way,” says Tony Coffield, Creative Director of CuriousOranj. “Although there is an emphasis on more social ways of learning, pockets of privacy are created towards the back of the room, with a more open, busy and noisy area at the entrance. The lines of shelving, due to the angle at which they are placed, will form a conduit from one side to the other. Your sight is drawn along the line of shelving as you come in from the central tower - it is directional and pulls people in.

"The shelving itself goes higher, up to five then six shelves towards the back, and behind this is a line of desks which are more shut away, a ‘hard study area’.” As the ceiling is nine metres high, some of the other desks will have ‘umbrella’ canopies over them to create a more intimate space. The same gradation plays through the building from top to bottom, with the more academic, quieter areas at the top, alongside the compact shelving, down to the busier services area.

Careful observation of students has also been a major part of the designers’ strategy. "When we were researching the Learning Café, our initial findings were that students did not want a cybercafé - they envisaged this to be banks of computers - because they liked working in groups, and Glasgow Caledonian encourages this type of learning,” says Designer Valerie Clugston. Subsequently they were more than happy with their big benches and sofas.

By basing themselves in the Learning Café, the designers were able to observe anew how students were using furniture and what sorts of areas were most popular. “Surprisingly, the benches weren’t working too well as some people couldn’t see the PC screen, so we are incorporating new shapes of tables and placement of PCs in the new Centre,” says Val.

Tony adds: “We also learnt that students will create their own space if they haven’t got one suitable so we are ensuring that some furniture can be moved around. We observed that people like to take ‘ownership’ of different bits of a physical space, even a particular chair.”

As well as consulting students, they are working closely with an academic group, and an operational group, which includes the librarians. “First they talked about atmospherics and what they wanted to achieve,” says Val. “The academics definitely wanted group working areas. The operational team, which we meet fortnightly, give us much finer detail, discussing what is the right amount of stock, for example. The librarians wanted more books, but there was the dilemma that less books meant more space for people.” Hence the solution of using compact shelving, fully accessible by the students.

Although flexibility is key - different times of the year will make demands on different areas of the building, and we can’t see into the future - there are some fixed elements needed. ‘Landmarks’ or service pods on each floor contain self-issue and information kiosks, telling you what is on that level. “By their placement, these elements facilitate a filtering mechanism for user enquiries, so that by the time a visitor gets to the reception desk their questions may have been answered,” says Tony.

The main reception desk has been designed as the least barrier-like counter there is. It curves around, so students can get behind it and, as it has spaces to sit in, inside it. This will encourage library staff and students to work together. Tony says: “We noticed that some students don’t like to ask questions in front of others so if their query hasn’t already been answered, they can at least talk to a staff member beside them and not across a counter.”

Signage is another crucial element. The Pro-Vice Chancellor wanted the building to be as easy to understand as possible: “I want the building to talk to them.” But there are obviously things a visitor will need to be told such as the location of the compact shelving on the top floor. CuriousOranj will be using a mixture of standard, audio, and “highly visual signage and artwork”. The top floor study areas may say ‘shush’ to you, for instance, as you open the door. They also want to use directional sound and tactile elements to bring out the different personalities of each floor.

There are three interior designers and one graphic designer hard at work on the Centre. Val admits that she finds the project “...fantastically challenging, and inspirational... there is not a lot of research in the profession on the interior design of learning spaces. We may need to write a book about it...”

Information Scotland Vol. 3 (1) February 2005

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Last updated: 21 March 2005