Piazza Episode 1 - A New Hope

At this week’s Learning Spaces Working Group, Helen Stephenson (Estates Project Manager) and I presented our first round of recommendations for the Piazza Building - a new teaching and catering building due to come into use for Spring Term 2018.

Artist's impression of the Piazza Building's position on Campus East

Situated on the University’s Campus East site near the Ron Cooke Hub, between Langwith College and the lake, it’s our first big opportunity since teaching buildings were first constructed on the East Campus to review space needs and respond to six years - nearly seven and a half by the time it’s live - of exciting growth and development of the departments based there, plus provide a new home base for our up and coming International Pathway College.

Having looked at those space needs, and the space that we expect to need for the next few years, the building will include:

• a lecture theatre, to seat approximately 350
• over 30 seminar rooms, each seating approximately 20
• a catering space, to seat about 350, with full commercial kitchen
• various circulation areas, set up to support study or group work between timetabled sessions
• a flat-floored space, which could be used as a 100 seat lecture theatre but we’re hoping to leave available for student lead activities.

All of which I’ll be taking a closer look at in a series of posts leading through to the new year.

Eve
Learning Spaces Installations & Project Manager