Autonomous vs collaborative workspaces for academic research: a design issue. The case of the new scientific university campus in the Milan Mind district.

As higher educational facilities face the challenge of digital transformation in teaching methodologies and its impacts on spatial layouts, contemporary trends in academic workplaces rethinking have undergone a significant push as the result of remote working, also persisting after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown periods. The ongoing debate in workspaces design, arguing the advantages of open space against individual rooms, has shifted to a balance, acknowledging that a flexible mix of spaces for personal focus, informal communication, and collaboration provides a more effective and satisfying environment, responding to new physical and social requirements. Academia still strongly opposes the abandonment of the cellular office and the rethinking of research infrastructures in a perspective of openness and sharing, due to its hierarchical structures, even despite the functional obsolescence of existing facilities. However, further drives to renew research facilities design models arise from the issue of operational and maintenance costs and the emerging trends in education. This paper presents the case study of the brief and meta-design definition for a new scientific university campus in Milan, introducing the issue of specialised high-tech laboratories and ancillary spaces as places for collaborative working within the quantitative and qualitative layout setting of the new facility. Accordingly, the meta-design methodology purposely implemented is reported, as well as the definition of requirements, also following a thorough co-design process, finally allowing for the development of design guidelines for spatial flexibility and multidisciplinary research activities.