It specialises in digital media and design, with a courses spanning fashion, broadcasting, product design, architecture, graphic design, animation, moving image. The building is ideally placed on the digital peninsula, and as you would imagine, is the product of very innovative design with some great features.
The space takes flexibility to its extreme. It's mainly open plan, no academic has an office, there's no owned space, no concept of departmental space. Just functional, flexible spaces.
The prototype lab has everything from textile design, to engineering product design, to 3d printing, to electronic prototyping. All of the students work side by side.
Everything is open and flexible. Sometimes just the pillars have "room numbers" on, and the space is arranged however it's needed.
Lots of lockers around as well for personal possessions. It's incredibly technology rich. Every student has to own a laptop, and there's a bursary system in place for students to purchase MacBooks. Lots of media editing stations, sound studios, broadcasting studios, etc. But sometimes, low tech works just as well, such as the vertical projection screens which can be moved around the flexible teaching areas and are better than fixed plasma screens. Some great social spaces for students as well. And with 80% space occupancy it's very efficient.
I loved it! It even has a funky url - www.rave.ac.uk
Hope to get a group of us from Sheffield on a proper tour soon. Oh, and the views were pretty impressive!
PS Apologies for quality of photos - taken with my old iPhone so not brilliant, but they're a lot better if you click on them
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1 comment:
Looks a fabulous facility - I'll have to pop my head in when I'm passing.
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