Utilizing input from students, faculty and the community, the new Carroll Center for Innovative learning was developed as a 21st century learning environment. The re-invented area includes formal and informal educational spaces that were right sized to support varied class sizes.
- Innovative Instructional Delivery & Assessment Systems
- Expanded Project-Based and Career-Focused Learning Spaces
- Robust Student Support Systems
How do we update existing classroom spaces to better serve the campus and surrounding community?
Using a design thinking process, BLDD helped the College develop a solution for 21st-century educational spaces and implemented it throughout the project.
"The Carroll Center is a 21st century learning environment that truly sets Richland students apart, offering integrated technology, project-based spaces, cross-disciplinary learning, and a variety of learning and study environments."
The Think BIG process with Richland Community College started with creating strategic committees to address: curriculum, logistics, evaluation of concepts, partnerships, student engagement, and strategic goals for the project.
Exemplar facilities were toured to see what spaces could work for the new learning spaces. Classroom observations, staff interviews, and student feedback helped guide the designers. Students, faculty, and staff were able to work with our architects to help design the student-centered environments.
Two designs were developed, and full-size prototypes of the spaces were built on campus and tested by faculty and students.
Several of Richland Community College’s high-performing programs were in need of renovated spaces to refocus the emphasis of learning to a student-centered model.
As the Richland Community College student body grew, so did the college’s need for services to support the varying stages of enrollment, student success and records.
Since the classes, labs, and greenhouse spaces were scattered throughout the campus, there were no central offices, classrooms designed for other disciplines, or collaborative spaces for students. This made sharing ideas, materials, and information difficult.