New learning experiences. How the space planning and the technologies can be activators of innovative teaching methods

The future of design teaching is going toward new reflections and challenges in the field, due to the evolvement of the users' needs and the new and updated learning models. New pedagogical approaches, based on active and blended learning paths, tend to consider a wider range of aspects going from the social conscience of students’ and teachers’ roles to the ever-increasing implementation of technologies. This growing use of teaching practices, however, encourages a deep reflection on the design of learning spaces in universities and colleges. Nowadays existing spaces are generally unsuitable and ineffective to support the progress of an educational path based on the massive use of ICTs and digital supports. This lack of proper spaces must foster the revision of university environments - such as classrooms, laboratories, and connective spaces - in terms of flexibility, personalization and collaboration, creating an envelope designed to support and encourage different types of learning practises. The desire to stimulate the implementation of active and participative teaching by space’s assets aims to support the students’ involvement in the entire learning path, trying to enhance their creativity and encouraging the development of personal soft skills in order to face future challenges independently. This paper focuses on the evolving requirements of learning spaces to become effective spatial supports able to make lectures as learning experiences developed by a network of different people and sharing of knowledge with a total involvement of them. A specific case study of an on-going research project will be presented as an application of a set of tools and spatial guidelines for the implementation of an innovative learning environment in the University Campus of the Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Teaching experts were asked to conduct a survey on different learning activity groups (KPA, KPA and KDA) to identify specificities within a design didactic path and to define different levels of interaction with space. The expected results aim at a deep rethinking of university spaces as environments able to induce a continuous mechanism of interaction between people and spaces according to changing and updating needs. Classrooms’ setting must engage connections on different levels, creating and encouraging both real and virtual experiences using smart devices and immersive solutions. This learning space prototype specifically designed reflects the whole university environment as an alive and vibrant organism, composed of constantly moving information flows through actors, spaces, and supports for a 360-degree performing use, able to achieve a very high educational impact.