Section E
Character
10 Materiality
Materials should be utilised to improve the quality of internal and external environments. The materiality of surfaces in a space can affect people both negatively and positively. Materials that offer a positive sensory experience contribute to spaces that are enjoyed and well used. Often these spaces are created from a concise, natural and robust palette of durable and long-lasting materials. For example, exposed masonry can be used as a thermal store, acting as a thermal buffer, minimising increases in temperature when occupancy levels rise. Materials should be selected for their self-finishing properties, to avoid an expensive and time-consuming painting regime.
While landscape is often perceived as a natural soft environment, the hard landscapes on campus are intensively used zones of university life. This highlights the importance of elements like paving, seating, outdoor lighting and street furniture. To enhance users’ sensory experience, materials should be legible, engaging and robust, encouraging people to spend time outdoors and supporting a wide range of activities and uses. The relationship between hard and soft landscapes should be symbiotic, working to a common, sustainable goal. Materials, and how they're deployed, play a fundamental role in urban cooling and low-carbon design solutions throughout the campus.
The Gateway Building, designed by Make Architects for the University of Nottingham's Sutton Bonington Campus.
The straw-filled panels for The Gateway Building were prefabricated in a controlled off-site 'flying factory' using local labour.
The Big Data Institute, designed by Make Architects for the University of Oxford.
Do the materials enhance/boost the quality of natural light, particularly during the winter months when light levels are low?
Do the materials promote health and wellbeing?
Is the material palette aesthetically appropriate, appealing and coordinated?
Are materials durable and simple to maintain? Do they improve over time?
Are the materials appropriate for how the space is used? Do they support and enhance the range of activities taking place?
Do users view the materials positively, indifferently or negatively?
Do the materials enhance or detract from the architecture/quality of the space?
Do the materials offer a rich sensory experience? For example, brick over steel and glass.
Are materials being used according to their nature?
11 Nature
Although many institutions have external landscapes and potentially a campus, this does not imply proximity to nature. It is always possible to provide some form of natural environment, and this should be a priority for all universities.
Too often buildings are in the centre of open spaces, disconnected from campus buildings and surrounding communities. This was frequently done to facilitate vehicle access and maximise car parking. Such suboptimal use can be addressed, for example, Make’s conversion of a car park at the University of Nottingham's Sutton Bonington Campus into a pedestrian boulevard.
Planting and natural materials are fundamental to the provision of effective habitats, managing pollution, and improving air quality and wellbeing. Biophilic elements have been proven to lower stress levels and improve concentration.
Often the spaces outside buildings have a limited programme of functional uses and are underutilised. There is a marked contrast between how much activity could take place in them – from socialising and relaxing to moving indoor activities outdoors, such as group work or meetings – and how much actually does take place.
When education buildings are considered open to the surrounding urban context, their outdoor areas become part of the public domain, inviting surrounding communities in to share the facilities.
A sustainable campus is committed to increasing local ecology and diversity and to creating places that use nature to enhance human health and wellbeing. This includes the use of native planting, with documented value for wildlife such pollinators, cover and foods that are resilient to extreme weather conditions.
Landscapes change through the day and season, remaining memorable when students graduate from their institution. They also shape and are shaped by there users.
In a learning environment, landscapes present an opportunity to express the values, objectives and spirit of an institution. Layered with narrative, programme and sustainability strategies, the importance of investing time and energy into nature creation becomes evident.
London Wall Place, Make Architects. The landscape was designed to improve ecology and promote wellbeing.
Suggested prompts
Does it reflect universal design principles?
Do the various landscape typologies maximise biodiversity and habitat creation?
Does it stimulate responses from all senses?
Are water and nature routes used to mediate between buildings and landscapes, from the campus out to the wider environment?
Are biophilic responses maximised through the considered placement and integration of landscapes with respect to internal spaces?
Is there a generous provision of natural landscapes to improve air quality and mitigate potential pollutants?
Is the landscape and its maintenance reflective of universities aspirations, claims and values?
12 Legibility
Every educational building ideally should have a spatial order that works as a structure of streets and squares designed to form a ‘micro-city’, with the layout designed to generate social contact and meetings. The building should create a broad range of visual relationships. For example, movement through a corridor or stairwell should be as open as possible so that users can cross paths and have scope to engage. Spaces can be arranged to bring people together, enabling users to see and be seen by each other, fostering a sense of belonging.
The university campus should reflect the fundamental order of a city – the inter-relation between the public and private realms should overlap to foster a shared sense of responsibility. The campus realm should be articulated and constructed in ways to make it accessible to all.
The street/route/corridor is the space for human interaction and discourse, and the quality of public and private spaces that define it are mutually interdependent. From this understanding of a campus as a city, the concept of shaping public space is a fundamental design principle.
To promote access to feasible parts of campus buildings, such as ground floor common areas, the demarcation of private spaces needs to be thoughtfully considered and defined.
In-between or threshold spaces should be used to mediate between the various areas within a campus, forming space for informal and incidental meetings and dialogue between users.
The optimum adaptive building form must invite various users for many functions, so that it can endure in an ever-changing campus. Meanwhile, campus buildings should be ordered structures that are capable of being interpreted by each generation.
Sensitivity to size, based on an understanding of the activities that could take place there, and the number of users is critical to the articulation of place. Spaces may have been designed with an over-reliance on (often past) programmes and regulatory standards rather than an empathetic understanding of the people engaging in the activity within the space.
Town House, Grafton Architects.
Teaching and Learning Building, Make Architects.
