Thirteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The new learning models, in continuous updating and development, are one of the fundamental coordinates leading to new reflections on the future of teaching. New pedagogical approaches of the “active learning” strand, with an implementation of an active and participative teaching needs, however, a new reflection on the spatial environment in which it is located and that should support the students, facilitating the process of involvement, participation, comparison enhancing their creativity and encouraging the development of their “soft skills”: environments able to guarantee motivation, flexibility, personalization, collaboration and good behaviors. Since colleges and universities around the world are facing the challenges of rethinking higher education facilities, to respond to the emerging needs, this paper focuses on the evolving requirements of learning spaces to become spatial supports able to make the lecture a learning experience malleable by the users involved. An experimentation on an on-going research project aiming at defining a set of tools and spatial guidelines for the innovative learning environment in the Politecnico di Milano Campus(Italy). The expected results aim at a rethinking of the spatial model that supports in the classroom this continuous mechanism of interaction between people and space, creating and encouraging the greatest possible number of connections between the different actors with a specific final output: learning space’s prototypes, as an alive and vibrant organism for a 360-degree performing use, to reach a very high educational impact.