Spy HQ Success Right Up Our Street, Says University
30 May 2013
The Buxton Campus' iconic Dome
The University of Derby Buxton's famous Dome is at the forefront of the same pioneering design trend which has seen the GCHQ spy centre improve its response times in the battle against terrorism, academics have been told.
The 44.2 metre diameter dome covers the same type of open space which is at the forefront of fresh thinking in the way offices, schools and factories are being organised to increase contact and information sharing among staff, students and workers.
And Professor Colin Beard, Professor of experiential learning at Sheffield Business School, said that designers were now planning to take the office out of office blocks, and the stationary out of the workstation, with fewer and fewer staff having to be present so much at their own desks in a bid to increase the speed at which an organisation can react - while also cutting costs.
Professor Beard, who has taught across the globe and advises international corporations on how to put his experiential learning theories into practice, said the Government Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham - which keeps the UK safe by monitoring worldwide electronic message traffic - was a good example.
GCHQ now has at its heart an open "Street" with the same area as the Albert Hall which enables staff to mix in an informal setting, expanding personal links and exchanges of knowledge in a natural and highly effective way.
"Their response time to terrorist threats has been reduced because of the Street," Professor Beard said during his talk entitled: "Is Learning Now the Same as Working? - The experience of learning and working as converging phenomena in the knowledge economy."
He also gave the example of a global built asset firm which had deliberately redesigned its London HQ with 450 workspaces - despite having 900 staff - to prevent offices becoming "bunkers" in which to hide from social knowledge exchange.
"They are making savings by not everybody having a desk," said Professor Beard, who emphasised that this had nothing to do with old-fashioned open-plan designs, which often did not appear to be effective.
And with the arrival of mobile personal communication equipment in the form of tablets and smart phones, human mobility is back, with our bodies increasingly working in harmony with our brains by using new 'gesture' based technologies (GBTs) in many different spaces and places. Such mobility means that potentially, "The whole world is your office," he said.
Dr Sarah Rawlinson, Assistant Director (Academic) said the way that the University of Derby Buxton already used the Dome was an excellent example of the philosophy, and fitted in with its policy of giving students real-life chances through real-life experiences.
"That is what our experiential learning means to us," said Dr Rawlinson.
