The teaching model employed by universities is over 1500 years old.
Universities as we recognise them, trace their history back to Bologna, around 1088,
when scholars started organising themselves into guilds.
It wasn’t until purpose built universities were constructed, in the new world,
that the concept of a university campus, as we understand it, was developed.
By the post-war period, universities had developed into rationally planned campuses
set within, but separate from, their suburban surrounds.
And then, the internet changed everything.
Course content and delivery has now been freed from the need for physical infrastructure.
So do campuses have a future?
Currently, universities exist in a partially deregulated market
and are mostly a collection of buildings that house and service those
involved in teaching and learning and increasingly, research.
They provide courses and facilities so as to enable
the production of degrees in intellectual property.
The planning for this is then documented and expressed
in the university's strategic plan.
This is fine as far as it goes,
but what is the role of the physical place in all of this?
When viewed through the lens of strategic planning,
the campus is often seen only as a necessary consequence
of the need to provide the facilities to deliver the aims of the strategic plan.
Strategic plans tend to be output focussed.
The problem with this is that it can lead to a very narrow understanding
of what it is you're actually selling.
It leads to a focus on the product at the expense of human experience.
So why is this a problem?
It's worth considering the music industry, a market that a decade ago
went through the digital upheaval
that higher education now finds itself in the middle of.
In the decade to 2010, global recorded music sales fell by $10B
as digital downloads freed music from the traditional product in the form of CDs.
However, over the same period,
global music industry revenue increased by an estimated $36B.
Why?
Because while the product of recorded music was rendered next to valueless,
the markets desire for the experience of music has increased massively,
leading to a huge rise in the market for live experiences and merchandise.
So those business that mistakenly thought their product was packaging recoded music
have suffered massively, while those that realised
they are in the business of allowing audiences to experience live music, have thrived.
Connections and experiences have become far more important
as the media itself has become more globalised and fragmented.
Similarly, if students no longer need to go to university campus,
will they still choose to go?
Only if universities build a place based experience from the individual out.
The university of the future will not only need to attract students and academics
alongside knowledge workers and researchers, but also business and government,
to complete an interdependent trinity necessary for a sustainable ecosystem.
These groups in turn require infrastructure that not only provides facilities,
but also technology, amenity and recreation.
This environment will allow students to create
a network of peers and professionals with shared interests,
interests that may be academic, vocational or social.
These tribes are then able to extend their connections globally via digital means.
It is safe to say that no matter what course technology takes,
one thing will remain consistent, human experience and interaction.
The form that these experiences will take will change over time,
but the quality of the experience, the university's brand if you will, must remain consistent.
So how can we respond?
We need to start to plan from street level up, the pedestrian perspective.
Our first concern must be the experience of those that use our spaces.
We need to create an urbanised knowledge economy
that supports a critical mass of learning, research and industry,
all gathered around knowledge clusters.
We can't be all things to all people.
We need to specialise broadly around areas of strength,
or to put it another way, we need to cultivate tribes.
We need to provide the networked innovation precinct that supports this.
We need to embrace and build in flexibility.
We don’t know where technology and society are headed,
so we must build spaces that are adaptable.
We must create drama and experiences that can't be replicated online.
Opportunities for people to interact, discover and learn
in a way they can't do on a computer.
Finally, we must resist the temptation to fragment.
A university will slowly lose it's character
if schools and faculties seek this urbanisation on their own by relocating to the city.
So, interestingly enough, after this thousand year journey,
we may find that our destination looks a lot like where we started.