Building institutes of higher education

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: India currently has an 11% university enrolment ratio, totalling 1,40,00,000 students, compared to 60% in the US and Canada and 21% in Bric nations. This looks set to increase with commitment from the Indian government that they will work together with universities to increase the amount of eligible students who go on to pursue higher education.

The next logical question one anticipates is, “When demand for higher education is increasing in the country, where do you begin in designing new state-of-the-art facilities to meet that demand and how will it affect local infrastructure?”

Economies of scale

Broadly speaking, universities as a ‘physical entity’ are approached from either a campus perspective such as Warwick University or the London School of Economics, which groups facilities into one or two main campus areas, or a community perspective such as Open University or Oxford University, which have many schools across a number of areas that share common services. In the UK, universities either take the campus approach or consolidate their facilities into fewer geographical areas.

A benefit of having one central campus with shared facilities is that it allows students who are not from the local vicinity to live nearby and mix with other students. This has been emphasised recently in the UK, highlighting how students from different streams can benefit from sharing facilities, equipment and specialist teaching knowledge. Through consolidating facilities into one main campus, there is also an opportunity to reduce travelling and running costs, long-term maintenance costs and strengthen the branding of the university, giving students a strong identity that can stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Core focus

The key to planning a new campus or remodelling an existing one is to form the design around three core facilities of learning resource centre, social facilities and administrative support, which students use regardless of the programme they attend.

The learning resource centre provides more than just somewhere to access reading material. It is a place to source reference material from the internet and books, access digital media, download podcasts of lessons and to study independently outside structured classes. Other teaching accommodation, specialist facilities and administrative support could be clustered around these core shared functions or linked remotely as suits the individual institution.