Wednesday 27 January 2016

New Year, new update!

Welcome to 2016: a year that promises to be a challenging, but hugely positive for staff, students and University as a whole. 

Recently I was invited to attend the YUSU Academic Leadership meeting with Sarah Bacsich, one of our Estates Project Managers. Sarah presented an update and current proposals for Spring Lane Building, and I presented on the future of learning space across campus. 

We received really valuable feedback, particularly around the well-known dislike to certain types of tablet chair across campus which we will look at replacing as we roll through our refurbishment cycle. I will be giving a similar talk to the Taught Masters Special Interest Group later in the term.

What we’re working on

We have many projects to look forward to enhance our current learning spaces provision and also a large amount of work to complete before the main fit-outs begin in the summer. We are identifying the programme for the current estate we plan to redevelop, alongside tender preparations for the AV and furniture for the Spring Lane Building, Biology Phase 2 and a number of other rooms.

Other updates 

  • The completion of the Spring Lane Building steelwork was marked with a ’topping out’ ceremony, attended by the Vice Chancellor and others. The steering group has now settled on final options for the building’s lecture theatre and the plans are being drawn up.
  • The new Environment Building has been completed and occupied. Teaching is now taking place within the building, and the lecture theatre is due to be opened imminently.
  • The fit-out for the new York Plasma Institute (YPI) extension was completed, adding a 70-seat fully equipped video conferencing lecture theatre and bringing YPI’s staff, students and post-doctoral researchers together under one roof.
  • Consultation has begun on the new IPC Piazza Building. Although it’s not due for completion until 2017, we are pleased to be around the table this early in the process.
  • The previously postponed V/N/044 and D/056 refurbishments are now rescheduled to take place after Easter and into the Summer Term as this will cause less disruption on the whole. We received some really useful feedback from our survey on these rooms, which I will share in my next blog post.

General comments and feedback are, as always, welcomed via our email learning-spaces@york.ac.uk. If you have any ideas or suggestions on how we could improve please feel free to drop us a line.

Steve Jackson

Learning Spaces Designer/Project Manager
Space Management