By Nahla El Gendy
All photos are courtesy of HASSELL/Dugdale Strategy
For the past years, AUC has engaged in a Learning Spaces Strategic Plan to promote an integrated learning landscape for the AUC community — a blend of formal and informal, physical and virtual learning. It is meant to enhance the learning experience for students, support teaching transformation, and deliver future-ready and resilient settings. The plan consists of two phases: the first involved exploration and preliminary design studies, and the second comprised the development of designs for pilot spaces, including classrooms, improved collaborative and study settings, and richer hybrid and informal distributed learning settings.
As learning activities become increasingly blended, more courses require teamwork outside of the classroom. The redesigned Learning Commons, the experimental sandbox and other hubs can provide more shared hybrid spaces with different types of support services enriching the learner experience
“This is one of the most exciting projects I have worked on,” said Aziza Ellozy ’64, ’67, associate provost for transformative learning and teaching. “Based on feedback from all stakeholders, we have tried to push the envelope. The resulting inherently flexible, technology-enhanced redesigned spaces will allow faculty to experiment with more creative pedagogies and students to have more collaborative spaces, formal and informal, while learning in person, virtually or in a global setting.”
Learning Commons: Terrace Learning Zone — A row of five trees have been added to the space offering students sheltered destinations 
Learning Corridors: Group Seating — Colored acoustic backings bring life to the corridor and give each frame its own identity. Individual study and relaxation, group seating as well as a collaboration wall increase the amount of informal interactions that can occur in the corridors 
Learning Commons: Digital Scholarship Lab — As learning activities become increasingly blended, more courses require team project work outside the classroom. Learning Commons, sandboxes and other hubs can provide more shared hybrid spaces with different types of support services, enriching the learner experience 
Learning Commons: Digital Exhibit Corridor 
Learning Commons: Dynamic furnishings for user configurability — A welcoming seating area at the entry anchors the beginning of the digital exhibit zone down the center of the Learning Commons 
Learning Commons: Active Collaboration Zones — The Commons will be transformed with settings designed to accommodate group study and team work 
Using the frame as a building block, a series of connected interventions will emerge across the campus to transform learning both internally and externally 
Learning Commons: plaza and garden connection 
Learning Commons: service desk 
Sandbox: Pedagogy Innovation Lab — The technology within the Sandbox should be adaptable, so the primary driver is to provide a flexible framework for supporting multiple types of technologies 
Learning Corridors: Individual study and relaxation, group seating as well as a collaboration wall increase the amount of informal interactions that can occur in the corridors 
Learning Corridors: Individual study and relaxation, group seating as well as a collaboration wall increase the amount of informal interactions that can occur in the corridors 
Large Pilot Classroom: The recommended layouts for this larger classroom type will enable instructors to apply active learning methods in class sessions of up to 48 people 
Outdoor Classroom: Learning in the Gardens — The Outdoor Classroom creates an enhanced learning space in the gardens, offering shade, seating and a writable collaboration wall
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