As designers it’s often hard to for us to articulate the power of great design to new clients. It’s exciting when the impact of design is recognized and called out by users, as we saw in a recent assessment of Duke University’s Link, the Duke Teaching and Learning Center that opened in the lower level of Perkins Library in August 2008. Designed to encourage collaborative work and project-based learning, the Link answers a bigger question: how do we learn and how can our environments best support this? The Link is the culmination of our extensive planning and partnership with ...[more]

MILWAUKEE, WI – In an article published in today’s Business Journal of Milwaukee, Law School Dean Joseph Kearney described the new law school, Eckstein Hall, as a building that advances the unique role of the law school as an “intellectual commons and a space for the development of law and public policy”.

The unique integration of the law school library creates the sense of a “library without borders” by making it accessible from all levels of the school.

Ralph Jackson, Principal for Design, described Zilber Forum, the buidling’s four-story atrium, as its most stunning space and one designed to foster a collaborative learning environment.

Ground was broken for Eckstein Hall in May ...[more]

Design is now underway for the Harvard Innovation Lab (Harvard I-Lab), a campus-wide innovation incubator located on the Harvard Business School campus in Boston.

In announcing the project, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust said, “The importance of innovation cannot be overstated. It is also of utmost importance and great interest to our students and faculty, many of whom are inventors and entrepreneurs. The lab will foster team-based activities and deepen interactions among both aspiring and experienced innovators across the schools of Harvard.”�

Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria said, “Our goal is to drive innovation by connecting entrepreneurial teams, not only across the Charles River, but ...[more]

It’s official! Salem State University (Salem, MA) broke ground for its new library and learning commons on December 7. University president Patricia Maguire Meservey and Jacob Segal, chair of the university’s board of trustees, were joined by local political leaders and top state education officials in a ceremony on the university’s north campus.

The 124,000 square foot facility replaces the previous campus library, which was closed in late 2007 for concerns about its structural safety. The four-story library will include instructional labs, group study rooms, and a testing center, and ...[more]

Shepley Bulfinch is designing a home for Philadelphia University’s new College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce, which has just been announced.

The new academic building will house an ambitious program, defined by the university as a “revolutionary, transdisciplinary curriculum that retains the core learning of each discipline while forging new collaborations between the fields of design, engineering, and business.”

The new 40,000 s.f. building will be located near two other Shepley Bulfinch projects on the Philadelphia University campus: Gutman Library (1993) and Kanbar Campus Center (2006). The firm’s other recent cross-disciplinary learning environments in higher education ...[more]