Opening Paths in Learning Designs

During recent years, higher education institutions have turned their attention to innovate physical spatial conditions for learning. According to learning theory experts, the continuous flow of learning theories and the demanding results expected from students have made obsolete most traditional learning spaces. Particularly, the increasing introduction of new technologies in learning activities has demanded spatial conditions that afford active engagements using those resources. Thus, these new physical learning environments are committed to facilitating technological innovations and encouraging behaviors connected with student success. As a result, the design of new learning centers has emerged as a necessity in different universities around the word.

The first part of this article examines what designing physical environments from a learning-based approach implies. Relying on Tim Ingold's work on lines (2007; 2015), I will argue that pre-defined conceptions of learning reproduce some kinds of environmental determinism that reflect an intentional link between design and behaviors. In these spaces, architects and learning designers are confronted with a need to put inside a version of the world with appropriate furniture (in the form of resources) and a clear direction (in the form of routes or lines of learning). Therefore, using Ingold's notion of "built environment," I want to illustrate that in Learning Centers resides an emphasis on form and content, that is to say, how the design should be and what kind of elements must constitute it. As such, these spaces resemble a smooth and uniform platform where the process of learning can be assembled.

The second part of the article aims to take a look at the lines of studying. Based on practice-based research in the AGORA Learning Center of KU Leuven (Belgium), I want to illustrate that the lines of learning captured in the notion of learning environments differ substantially from the lines of studying as they emerge in practical activity. Following Theodore Schatzki's notion of "activity timespace," it is proposed that studying is an indeterminate activity in the sense that it is not constructed or assembled, but instead it evolves in each encounter. Consequently, regardless of the prefiguration of the space, students' actions are not directed by distinctive intentions formulated by designers. As it will be shown, their actions resemble more the "wayfarer" described by Ingold (2007). Here, the wayfarer follows a path without a clear destination; she just moves on, but to do so, her actions respond to the path as it unfolds before her. In this way, the student's experiences are not determined by the space. Rather, there is an encounter with the social and material elements of the space that shape both of them.

These elements lead to a final formulation. From the point of view of studying, it is proposed, following Vilém Flusser (1999), to take a look at the design of the tent, where the focus is placed on force and materials, instead of the definitive forms and content of built environments.

1. The Learning Prefiguration of Universities' Spaces

The future of the university has been matter of discussion for a long time. In recent decades, important social and technological developments have exerted pressure over the university asking for its specific contribution toward knowledge society challenges, and demanding important changes in its practice. Invoking the overwhelming belief that knowledge is a key to economic and social progress, and that universities have an important role as producers, governments as well as social and economic institutions have led universities toward a crossroad with little room for maneuver. As described by Simmons and Masschelein (2008), in the logic of the knowledge economy, universities are regarded as "knowledge industries" that produce knowledge base and workers. Embedded in this background, learning is conceived as a central force to produce added value. Particularly, universities ought to rely on learning in order to adapt their practices to unpredictable future developments. Based on these premises, learning is transformed into a tool to update the knowledge base and workers' skills. It could be stated that, ultimately, learning has become both the question and the answer that drive most higher educational activities.

While "learning" has always been an important issue in...