A Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Informal Social Spaces in the
Christopher Gebhardt Student Research Symposium
HEDCO Education Building
15 February 2014
ABSTRACT
Lokey Education Complex
Main College of Education Buildings
Currently the Campus Planning Department at the University of Oregon requires that most new academic buildings built on campus include a certain variety of informal social spaces. This is based on a belief that good informal social spaces in university buildings can contribute to the intellectual life of the university by creating opportunities for frequent interaction between faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students, as well as foster interdisciplinary research and collaboration.
Alder St.
-Built in 1921 & 1980 -Three Buildings -Exterior Circulation -Four classrooms and departmental space
HEDCO Education Building -Built 2008 - 2009 -Classrooms, departments, and clinical spaces -First floor public areas: cafe and atrium.
This post-occupancy evaluation, developed in cooperation with Campus Planning, investigates the social spaces in the HEDCO building and evaluates their effectiveness in terms of how many people use them, whether they like them, how well they create opportunities for interaction between user groups, and whether they are actually assisting or enabling interdisciplinary collaboration.
Clinical Services Building -Built in 1970 -Classrooms, departments, and clinical spaces
18th
ROLE OF SOCIAL SPACE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
It identifies problems that can be fixed in the short term, and indicates successes and shortcomings that can be used to improve campus planning projects in the future using a variety of evaluation methods including a quantitative and qualitative space analysis, formal observation and trace analysis, an online survey distributed to College of Education members, follow-up interviews after the survey, and person on the street interviews.
INFORMAL FACULTY-STUDENT INTERACTION: Informal interaction between students and faculty has been positively correlated with increased measures of student success like academic performance and student retention. INFORMAL INTERACTION AND RESEARCH COLLABORATION: Informal interaction has been found to facilitate the formation of research collaborations, because frequent low-cost contact helps researchers become acquainted, identify common interests, and assess interpersonal compatibility.
Preliminary results suggest that HEDCO is very effective as a community center, and studentfaculty interaction does appear to be well supported. However, there was no evidence found that the social spaces in HEDCO are contributing in a significant way to formal research collaborations.
HEDCO as a Center of Community HYPOTHESIS: The social spaces in HEDCO provide a social center for the college and help foster a sense of community in by attracting members of the college who do not work primarily at HEDCO.
Student-Faculty Interaction
HYPOTHESIS: The social spaces in HEDCO provide HYPOTHESIS: The social spaces in HEDCO provide opportunities for casual interaction between faculty, graduate opportunities for researchers to interact with each other and students, and undergraduate students. facilitate interdisciplinary research and collaboration.
ften doHow youoften spend time in or use the common spaces How oftendo do you spend time in following common spaces you spend time infollowing or or useuse thethe following common spaces the College of Education within the CollegeofBuildings? of Education Buildings? within the College Education Buildings? n=59 20
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who think their department has an active hub for faculty and56% grad students.
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“I love that I can come in to something visually pleasing, that feels more like home. I wish the space was a bit bigger, so that there were more spots to sit around the fire. It is lovely because it is close to the cafe. I can almost always walk by someone I know in this area... creating a nice community place to reach out to others and connect.” - Grad Student
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56% 10 collaborating, or have you recently Are you 0.81 Do you feel like your department hasp-value= a collaborated on your project with other researchers? "hub" where faculty and grad students 8 Who are you collaborating with? Choose allpaths that apply. It shouldp-value= be noted though frequently cross and interact 1.00 6 that with this small sample informally? How did you begin your research collaborations? 14% 4 2
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Str Ag Ne ong re a i ly D gree ther A e ly A isaBut students gre g r erated HEDCO’s gre e en e or D opportunities for interaction with isa gre e faculty at only 55 out of 100. Dis
Are you collaborating, or have you recently collaborated on your project with other researchers?
Do you feel like your department has a "hub" and with? grad students Whowhere are youfaculty collaborating Choose all that apply. frequently cross paths and interact informally? How did you begin your research collaborations?
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Cas C O Lon ual hanc ther g D eE sio nco nal istan Socia l ce Eve I n te unte Co nt or C rresp ractio r n o onf ere ndenc nce e
We cross-referenced the answers to several questions about research How often do you spend time in the ground How often do you spend time in the to caféuse the social collaboration with the frequency researchers claim floor of HEDCO Education floor of Educationsignifi Building? spaces inBuilding? HEDCO, and found noHEDCO statistically cant relationship. It Alarm Clock was, in fact, very close to perfectly random. Busy Traffic Normal Talking at 3’ Quiet Office
p-value= 0.81
p-value= Are 1.00 you collaborating, or have you recently collaborated on your project with other researchers?
p-value= 0.95
How did you begin your research collaborations?
Some faculty explained that they don’t spend time in the cafe area with students because of how loud it gets. We measured a high of around 80 decibels there. Perhaps some sound dampening materials would help. Please click on your favorite spot in HEDCO’s first floor
The fireplace
size andp-value= HEDCO0.95 still being relatively new, this should not be taken as a definitive contradiction of the hypothesis.
fes
Who are you collaborating with? Choose all that apply.
Surprise Success: The Fireplace The fireplace in the HEDCO Atrium is one of the user’s favorite elements in the new building. It was mentioned more than any other feature in the free responses and interviews, and only once negatively. It is successful as a cognitive mapping landmark, and as a focal point or social interaction. In the behavior mapping there were almost always people there. It should be noted that this survey was conducted during a cold snap, but the interview responses claimed it gets constant year round use. The literal hearth in HEDCO’s metaphorical hearth space is easily the most successful social space in the college.
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“I find the2 building very conducive 0 20 0 Str S A D C N t Pro Lon g r isa e ong o r ith ee ngl g f g e r l e s e D yD 10 yA rA sio e nal is isa gre to meeting, gre gre e en Eve e or D n 0 collaborating and isa Faculty Students gre e How did you begin your getting my work research collaborations? done in my office.” p=.025 n=35 How often do you spend time in the ground 12 -Faculty Member floor of HEDCO Education Building?
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grad students frequently cross paths and interact informally? HEDCO appears to be a successful social center. Over 40% of the 100% survey respondents who did not work in HEDCO use the ground floor at least once a week, and over 50% use the cafe every week.
Faculty and Staff n=31
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The survey results for How did you begin y this hypothesis suggest that while the social collaboratio research spaces in HEDCO do provide opportunities for 12 researchers to talk about 10 have no their work, they significant effect on formal Grad Students 8 research collaboration. n=65
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Please rate the following attributes of HEDCO on a scale from 1 to 100, with The informal of the café area 1 being poornature and 100 being exellent. encourages me to talk with other researchers and share ideas there.with... Opportunities for interaction n=25
Do you feel like your department has a "hub" where faculty and grad students frequently cross paths and interact informally? n=112, p=.10
Respondents whose primary workspace is NOT in HEDCO:
20 20
Research Collaboration
“How about more fireplaces or a bigger fireplace. Often the area is crowded and I can’t sit near the fireplace like I long to do.” -Grad Student
p-value= 0.86
How often do you spend time in the ground floor of HEDCO Education Building?
p-value= 0.97
p-value= 0.81
p-value= 1.00
How often do you spend time in the café floor of HEDCO Education Building?
p-value= 0.86
p-value= 1.00
p-value= 0.97
p-value= 0.95
p-value= 1.00
The p-value is a measure of the likelihood that a result is the effect of random chance instead of a significant relationship. 1.00 is perfectly random, and .05 would be 95% certainty that it is not random. My thanks to my primary advisor, Jenny Young, as well as the other members of my committee: Christina Bollo and Ocean Howell. This project also owes a lot of Martina Oxoby and Emily Eng from Campus Planning and Real Estate, as well as Ken Loge and Cody Pinkston from the College of Education. This project would not have happened without the help of too many people to name here. The researcher also appreciates all the interview subjects and survey respondents who provided the data that made this study possible.