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Study Spaces I
Group #1

How can we make study spaces on campus optimized for student productivity and accessibility?

The UT libraries system plays an important role on campus and creates study spaces for many students. Despite the fact that there are 17 libraries on campus, students are unable to find the correct study spaces for them or feel like the study spaces on campus do not encourage productivity. In order to uncover the issues within campus study spaces, the team conducted surveys and interviews to outline the needs of a study space user. From the data, they developed various prototypes that sought to streamline the experience of a person finding the "perfect" study space or redesign the space itself to best-fit student needs.  

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Context
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Perry Castellano Library 

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  • Located in the heart of campus next to the freshman dorms, the PCL is the largest library on campus and serves at the primary study space for many college students.

  • It offers a wide variety of spaces from large collaborative areas to more private study rooms/cubicles. 

  • Despite the fact that people use the space, there is an overarching sentiment from college students that the PCL is "like a prison" and does not have "good vibes". 

  • PCL is apart of a system of libraries, and the last renovations of the space were in 1950 and 2007.

  • Consequently, many students choose to study at home and not utilize the library spaces across campus 

Immersion

Research

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  • Through surveys and user interviews, the team was able to get feedback on the current space itself and rank the study space factors that people consider when choosing a space.

  • Through expert interviews with architecture faculty and the university administration, the team was able to understand the various avenues that can be used to improve study spaces on campus.

College student's thoughts about PCL

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  • “Not enough outlets”

  • “Bad lighting”

  • “Terrible aesthetics”

  •  "Ugly"

  • “You can feel everyone’s stress”

  • “Uncomfortable seats”

Study space factors ranked

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  1. Outlet availability

  2. Noise Level

  3. Location

  4. Aesthetics

  5. Ability to eat

  6. Ability to study with Friends

Key Takeaway:

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Student Feedback: Students’ top concerns are noise, lighting, and furniture in a space. Specifically, the color and lack of flexible furniture make it hard to concentrate on the PCL’s 5th floor.

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Administration Feedback:

UT admin. created a task force of students and faculty that focuses on the PCL. They’re open to student feedback and have already incorporated student input (design charrettes) into renovations. 

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Ideation 
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Mass Ideation

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  • The team had a mass ideation session, seen on the left, where they came up with the most ambitious to practical ideas all on one board. From there, they focused on narrowing down the scope.

    • Study Buddy App

    • Interactive PCL Map

    • App for PCL

    • Interior Design Student Collaborations

    • Having the TVs in the empty rooms play videos of dogs

    • Blind Date with a book

    • Murals + Art from Student s

    • Healthy Vending Machines

    • Revamping cubicles

    • Archive bookshelves and rearrange study space (5th floor)

    • Changing the lights in the PCL

    • More windows?

    • Modular Tables → separate and bring together

    • Study pods

Key Takeaway: The Study Buddy App, the Interactive PCL Map, the App for PCL, and the rearrangement study spaces on the 5th floor were the ideas most related to improving students' mental health at the PCL

  • The ideas could be categorized into helping streamline student's use of the spaces (library apps and maps) or helping redesign the space itself (rearrangement of bookshelves on 5th floor) 

Implementation
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This is a low fidelity prototype of what the digital PCL map would look like. It would categorize floors based on the type of studying, show a heat map of noise level, and would display room availability.

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The Study Buddy App would categorize study locations based on a variety of criteria and would match a person with their ideal study space based on a series of questions.

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The PCL Study Helper would allow students to find study partners and study spaces that would match their study habits and location preferences.

Library
Next Steps 

Implementation 

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  • Write a proposal for Provost for structural re-design of PCL

  • Build implementation task force to build app next semester

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