The Advanced Learning Center accommodates teamwork, group presentations, and smaller seminars in a high-tech environment with touch of color and graphic. It creates an identity related to the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs’ mission as an institution serving urban communities and an innovator in education, research, and engagement. The transformed space in a former warehouse building inspires students to study social improvement opportunities.

The active learning setting is supported by visual aids on all sides of each space, including “learning walls” with monitors, whiteboards, wall talkers, and displays. Students cite these teaching aids in praise of their educational environment. Large-scale urban map murals on the classroom walls architecturally support the mission for engaging urban communities and to humanize the technology-intensive space, making it inviting.

Awards and Recognitions

• “The Revolution in Learning Spaces Design: Case Studies of How Technology, Nature and New Teaching Ideas Shape the Modern Classroom” (Course No. T276), NeoCon 2014, Chicago