Talking Point
An Architect and RIBA Client Adviser, Aaron Taylor drives Stantec’s UK business development activities and is the company’s education and cultural sector lead in the UK. Aaron’s specialism in education has led him to work at all levels within the sector, on both publically- and privately-funded schemes.
IS EDUCATION DESIGN READY FOR GENERATION Z? Aaron Taylor from architectural practice, Stantec, discusses how best practice from innovative workplace environments can be used to transform future education environments. every generation W ith comes new educational policy and curricula, designed to help educators prepare today’s students for their future careers. Technology has had an extraordinary influence on the way universities teach and the way that students learn. The journey from the first computing degrees to
the ubiquitous use of the interactive whiteboard and e-learning tools is relatively short, and yet technology is now completely embedded in education from foundation stage to post-graduate study. With technology advancing at an exponential rate, it’s hard to predict what tools we will use to educate future
generations, which makes it equally challenging to reimagine education buildings. However, with some experts predicting that as many as 65% of the jobs today’s children will be doing 20 years from now don’t even exist yet, something has to be done to create more flexible, agile education environments.
If the core challenge is aligning evolving educational needs with evolving workplace needs, it makes sense to take learn from commercial workplaces. Moreover, as employers continue to prioritise strategies for attracting and retaining the best talent, the commercial sector is seeing huge investment in research into workplace design. At Stantec, we have combined our international experience of designing education environments with the latest workplace thinking to generate a ‘learning and earning’ philosophy to explore ways that work environments and future workplace trends can be embedded in educational design.
Who are Generation Z, and what inspires them? While it is Millennials that will dominate the workforce over the next 20 years, they will need to create workplaces and education environments that not only appeal to Generation Z but also respond to Generation Z cultures and behaviours.
20
