Peter Kraftl and Peter Adley (2008) Archtecture/Affect/Inhabitation: Geographies of Being-In Buildings, in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 98: 1 (213-231)

notes CL

In this article the authors explore, 'how individual buildings and their architects preconfigure, limit and engender particualr affects to accomplish very particular goals' (p 213). We are doing something similar.

Discussion of what AFFECT is, drawing on cultural geographical literature. Thrift and 'the affective register'.

AFFECT as something that is 'pushing, pulling, or lifting us to feel, think, or act' (215).

'.. affect can be understood as teh property of relations, of interactions, of events: It is not purely the property of a single (human) being' (215). Affect 'emergent from relations between bodies'

Looks again at the Steiner school to see how it 'wecomes' through design and material shaping - gestural efects of buidling.

p 220 something intersting about the fact that not just the buildings themselves that have affective impact but the wasy in which people labour within them to create affect - eg cleaners, teachers preparing things, and so on. Are we attentive to this where relevant?

Decisions/ interntions to creatie affect are political, cultural, ethical. 

'the organisation and choreography of materials and bodies creates a stuborness or persistance of affect, to invoke simultaneously repetitive ... and iterative senses of space ... simultaneously to create senses of stability and safety'. ( 227)Cath this v tru in eduactional contexts - iteration of desks in rows, etc, creates sense of permanence over time and incribes powerful affects.

 

'For architects adn their buildings to be taken seriously, buildings must be imbied with the power to make a difference to their inhabitants' (213)

attention to buildings' affective, tactile, sensual effects.

 

MRC Ref: UWA/B/14 (HL's notes and has a photocopy)  Fisk, T. ‘Student Power’, The New Universities issue of The Architectural Review VOL CXL VII Issue no. 878 April 1970 pp.292-294 

Trevor Fisk was president of the NUS 1969

 

Sorbonne student riots 1968 – due to overcrowded classrooms and libraries and the separation of professors and students.

 

Although British students do not revolt as French students, university planners should not ignore common problems and attitudes that both French and British students have.

Previous architects could have taken certain views for granted- they were designing a community, with a sense of fellowship, separated from society to allow for concentration on academia and that students accept that the staff have privileges and better facilities.

 

When writing in 1970 it was noted that there had been a shift in the notion of community and common academic fellowship. This was still welcomed by some (‘campus intimates’) but others find too claustrophobic.

Staff privileges etc. are questioned.

 

Oct. 1969- Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Science presented a report on student relations to the House of Commons. The report argued that there is such thing as a ‘student view point’ (despite individual student opinion differing greatly on many issues).

 

Students well aware of the expansion of university intake in the 1960s and unhappy about the way in which it was being brought about and critical of the following report:

 

The Robbins Committee report 1963- scheme for meeting the expansion

1)      Upgrade Collages of Advanced Technology to new technological universities

2)      Create some new universities

New universities underway before the report

 

The NUS put forward an entirely different scheme.

Apposed brand new universities created from scratch; for these would be, as Warwick is, in rural/ outer urban settings deliberately at variance with the prevailing pattern of Redbricks.

The separate administration, financing and design was rejected as was the LEA colleges.

 

NUS plan was similar to the Government’s in 1966 for comprehensive schools. The NUS’ slogan was ‘towards comprehensive universities’ whereby existing universities ought to be integrated with neighbouring LEA colleges. It was also recommended that building should be designed to be used by others when not occupied by students.

 

During the creation of the new universities there was no student population to be involved with the planning or design where as universities and their architects must include students in the planning and designing of universities and students must ask to be involved.

 

Politics of space- ‘us’ and ‘them’ and territorial tensions inside universities and between the university and the local community

 

Students want integration and equality, they are uneasy about an ‘educational community’ (which can be isolated and single minded) and the place of the teacher. There is some concern when designs reinforce the comparative status of teacher and student.

 

Undergraduate thoughts on university design only stretch to their residential and recreational areas. There are no specific thoughts on academic buildings. However when it comes to undergraduate thoughts on national planning for higher education are set out in a proposal (NUS).

 

Warwick designed its campus with student facilities on one side and teaching and administration on the other, ‘in between are several hundred yards of ‘no man’s land’’ which seems to suggest there could be tension between the ‘two sides’.

 

The article did note that Warwick had been ‘notably free of student unrest’ however there was some unrest in February 1970 (what was this?).

…………………..

 

‘The latest predictions point to some 750,000 students in higher education by 1980. If they enter colleges the design of which is totally inadequate to their needs and out of keeping with their aspirations, the blame will rest as much on today’s students for their silence, as on the college planners for interpreting that silence as consent’ 

 

CATH's notes on same article: taken for specific purposes of HES paper.

We can place the eachrly Warwick students' contestation of the spatial construction and organisation of their emerging university in the context of 1968 and the protests in Paris adn elsewhere. Trevor Fisk, NUS President in 1969 offers some possible reasons for student dissatisfaction: 'The democratic vacuum of Gaullism. The physical overcrowding of their classrooms and libraries had aroused them beyond endurance ... the students were alienated from their professors whom they rarly saw away from the academic lectern' (1970: 292). He contimues, 'Whatever the truth behind 'l'affarire de mai', there are perhaps two lessons for the university designer. At some level the physical environment was one stimuls to revolt. Some of the student's feelings were expressed as attitudes to the structure of their campus. The riot would have taken place, but it would not have arisen the same way in an other-wise designed environement ..The physical environement may not cause human actions, but it clearly shapes the form such actions take' (1970: 292).  

Although there was no equivalent rioting in the streets of Coventry or Leamington Spa from Warwick's students, there was certainly evidence of the ways in which the physical environment and the kinds of relations and hierarchies it supported, were at the heart of students' expereince of university and their subsequent dissatisfaction. In particular, there was concern with the divisions between students and teachers which were central to the design and building of the campus. Fisk comments that the innate superiority of staff (and the manifestation of these in exclusive staff only common rooms and facitilies) was largely accepted by previous generation of student and teachers, by the 1960s and 70s new expectations of academic comminity and knowledge exchange were emerging and architectures which failed to acknowledge this were rejected. This was true in the case of Warwick, perhaps heightened by the fact that the design and construction was not pre-existing but going on all around the campus' 'inmates' (as Fisk calls them). It is hardly surprising that studnets wanted some say in the design and organnisation of the future university, but as the architect's biographers note, consultation with users was a long way from the top-down, autocratic mode of working at that time (ref YRM book).

Nationally, students' generally strong opinions about university development, was noted by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Science (in October 1969 - see Fisk, 1970:293). Although the lack of one unified 'student view' was noted, Fisk draws out what he suggests were 'general beliefs' and 'consistent attitudes towards the type of question which affects unviersity planning' (1970:293). These can be summarised as anxieties around the significant expansion of universities and student numbers following the Robbins report of 1963. Significantly for Warwick, there has been opposition  from the NUS prior to Robbins to the creation of new univerisites from scratch. In aprt this was becasue these would 'be sited in rural, or outer-urban, settings, deliberately at variance with the city-centre university pattern which had prevailed for the past century with the Redbricks' (p 293). The NUS supported comprehensive universites via integration with LEA colleages rather than new independetn structures. This impulse needs of course to be seen in the context of the shift in the 1960s under Labour to comprehensive schooling. For universities such as Warwick, the NUS was concerned at the lack of a student population to contest and constribute to the design and construction of new-builds (as of course the students had not yet been recruited).

What emerges from all the evidence at this time on students' multifaceted concerns, two things stand out: 'Students are uneasy about the notion of educational community and about the place of the teacher. They are uncertain about the isolation and academic singlemindedness of their universities. They feel the siting and design of their campuses often aim at reinforcing this sense of separation and undivided purpose ...' p. 294 

'In campus ... they feel anxiety when confronted by designes which reinforce the comparative status of teacher and taught. Integration and equality - although the meaning of these terms is as fiercely disputed amongst students as anywhere else - these are the principle goals' (p 294).

Interesting comments by Fisk that the specifi architectural requests from students tend to be about housing and recreation and the academic buildings and design tend to be discussed at the 'level of social theory' -(ie Cath at the level of 'ideals').

'One new university, Warwick, has been designed with all the students' facilities on one side of the campus, all the teaching and administrative areas on the other. In between there are several hundred yards of 'no man's land'. The whole arrangement seems to have been laid out to facilitate trench warfare between staf and students; the scheme nmight have been expected to re-inforce feelings of 'them' and 'us' and an alternative layout, with buildings dispersed randomly, should in theory promote a sense of community .. Expereince confounds the seeming idiocy of the design' (p 294). Fist here footnotes the later '1970 February unrest' - which we need to find out about from Warwick's archives and SU publications.

 Overall, Fisk argues for importance of student participation in questions of design -  cn we link here to the LG?

'Of the many stduents due to enter HE in years following 1969, 'If they enter colleges the design of which is totally inadequate to their needs and out of keeping with their aspirations, the blame will rest as much on today's stduents for their silence, as on the collehe planers for interpresting that silence as consent' (p 294).      

     

Notes on Henry Rees ‘A University is Born’: The Story of the Foundation of The University of Warwick (1989), Birmingham, Church Enterprise Print.

 

Notes by CL

 

This little book is a personal account by Henry Rees who it seems fist put forward the idea of the university and was instrumental in getting it approved and set up. He summarises all the meetings, reports and decisions from the initial germ of an idea to the first students arriving. It is useful to cross reference to the archive material and also is useful for:

-          Indicating useful newspaper articles, particularly Coventry Telegraph and Coventry Standard

-          A who’s who of the initial key players, including on p 79-82 a summary of the first profs and their backgrounds

-          The relationships with the City of Coventry and other bodies at the time

 

Things of note in particular:

 

6: Coventry Standard article commenting that all depts would be research active, ‘In all these research would play an important part. With its help we should learn more about ourselves, our city and its region’.

 

8-9 funny picture of a horse in a field ‘We hailed him as our first student’ and description of the site, ‘ We stopped the cr and admired the view. A level plateau sloped down to a clear stream, Canley Brook, bordered by an attractive copse, Tocil Wood. I was reminded of the setting of the University of Exeter …’ (9)

 

21: City Council Brochure ‘Proposed University College’ 1958 –

 

“This scheme has been prepared with the object of stimulating the conception of a university in Coventry and of showing how a positive architectural approach may assist in creating the environment necessary for the pursuit of knowledge.

 

In designing this university our first aim was to create a unified group of buildings which would provide the most inspiring environment for both study and leisure, creating conditions where the departments of learning would be closely linked with e buildings in which the students lived and spent their leisure time

 

There is ref to a ‘tower of learning’ which would be ‘some 200 feet high’ – a landmark and with views. and the picture on p 222 is fascinating – looks more like Birmingham than  Warwick.

   

The brochure also says, “Our design attempts to establish the University as a self-contained community complete in every respect, a place where the pursuit of knowledge and the life of the community would be synonymous” (see p 23)

 

The tower of learning is to be ’21 storeys high’. Rees comments on the designs and plans that, ‘A pleasant touch was that the buildings were oriented to line up with the direction of the spire of Coventry Cathedral: an echo of the redevelopment of the City Centre, where the main axis of the shopping precinct does exactly the same thing’ (p 23)

 

26: Coventry Standard article comments on how university would be almost completely residential and scheme breaks with tradition being ‘new and exciting’. Describes not ‘aping’ other universities and functionality of the design.

 

60: fear of a divided site (iif Engineering stayed at Lanchester College). Mr Templeman also notes that, ‘There would be a great advantage in dispensing with the conventional organisation into faculties and departments because of the rigid form this frequently imposes upon undergraduate teaching’   

 

71 Butterworth:

‘Coventry has pioneered in ‘system building’ which is a quick method of erecting buildings, and this has attracted the interest of the University Grants Committee. One of the architects who ought to be considered seriously ... is Arthur Ling ..’ He was one of the initial architects – what’s the relationship between him and YRM?? 

Once appointed one of the first things Butterworth did as VC was to cisit the US ‘ in order to visit modern university development and schools of business maangement’ (Rees p 73).

 

May 1963 digging began

 

76 ‘Three months later the building was occupied. The University had moved in, in the shape of a temporary typist (21^st August 1963) ...’

 

First profs all incredibly YOUNG – 7 of them in their 30s.

 

89 Lord Rootes “In Coventry the University of Warwick will match the new Cathedral; in Warwickshire it will be as great as Shakespeare. It is perhaps the most forward-looking university in the country’  (interesting quote – says something about its ambitions, sense of self, cultural value).

 

City Architect, “I do not think that in a city like Coventr we would want to clamp down on the number of cares in the university’ – an several car parks, with  ‘a large one in the central area’ were planned. Hmm.

 

East Site originally known as ‘First Site’ as served as a ‘university in inature’ for about 450 students. (92) 

 

5^th October 1965 The Times – “A good deal of radical thinking has gone into the curriculum. Courses are planned so that students can delay the choice of their specialist subject as long as possible. All undergraduates will take a course in the first year designed to encourage critical thinking and to show them the limits and possibilities of their own discipline’ (cited on p 99)

  

P 100 VC Butterworth welcomed new UGs by saying:

 

‘This university as a duty to the world outside .... It seems to me that things strong extrovert society is exactly the right place to put a university which believes it ought to have positive connections with society outside.  

HES presentation

HES slides

The University of Warwick. (1991) Making a University. A Celebration of Warwick’s First 25 Years

Printed by William Caple & Co. Ltd. Leicester. Compiled by Michael Shattock (possible interviewee)  

MRC reference UWA/B/12

Useful for 1960s, 70s & 80s Warwick. A compilation of photographs from the first 25 years of Warwick

Hannah has photocopies of some of the photos and captions from the ‘Academic Work’ section. Captions are useful in relation to staff and their departments.

 

Cath's notes on the same book, aso available in the library.

Shattock notes

 

P 13

Ling’s ideas – architectural and ‘viewed from living and communal perspective’, Chinn’s were about education. Walter Chinn a Quaker and a socialist – admired Tawney and Keele Uni. experiment.  Warwick not designed to be for local people. Chinn’s ‘Memorandum on the Creation of a University’ to the Education Committtee on 17 Oct 1958. said, ‘a university is by its very nature non-local in character’ UWA PP 4/4

P 14 idea of university part of dev of city centre – alongside Belgrade, Herbert – bringing cultutal and intellectual life into Manufacturing city. C How does this relationship between the manufacturing and cultural play out in the architecture?

P 17 disc about the name. Bishop Bardsley  (Bish of Cov) proposed University of Warwick. Some opposition following meeting – Richardson suggested ‘University of Arden’, Letts : ‘university of Coventry’CRO 1/1

P 18 desire for universities to turn out ‘balanced men’ rather than those with narrow/ necessary technical know-how. Chinn – progressive, supported comprehensives schools, wanted to see university which was comprehensive and covered wider spectrum of levels than trad university model

P 20 here suggests despite Oxbridge orientation of the Board, no desire to have colleagiate system, but C Hugh G H interview suggests otherwise – maybe this came later from Butterworth?

The Board saw university growing, ‘not be seeking to impose upon it at birth an artificial and romantic image of newness but by choice of staff with ideas on the development of their subjects; and by giving this limited staff the opportunity to create a university and its community’ (1963 UWA Com APB 1/1).   

P 22 Uniqueness of Warwick that it was only new uni to be founded in a manufacturing centre, ‘and perhaps for this reason the community – at the political, industrial and educational levels – was more involved, and invested more intellectual and, ultimately, financial capital in the university idea than in any of the other New Universities. ‘

Context in Coventry of conflicts between local and national interests and ideas about the university and what it would be. ‘In a very real sense the University was brought into existence by the generous support of the local authorities and a leading group of industrialists. It could not have happened without the initial leadership of Coventry but it was the very broadly based support of the community, as a whole, as evidenced in the success of the Foundation Appeal, which realised a national policy for founding new universities in the creation of what has become a national institution’ – List of contributors to Foundation Appeal on p 124.

P 25 ‘More than any of the New Universities, Warwick’s physical aspect illustrates the subordination of the discipline of planning to academic and social demands. The University has had three Development  Plans and has burst out of each of them ... ’

1960s YRM

1970s – filling in middles of Uni – Shepheard and Epstein and Renton Howard Wood

 1980s – massive building programme

See pp 26 -27 for the different plans.

We already have many of the pics – I am only highlighting those we don’t, which look good –

Pic 6 p 29 ‘The Long Walk between the Library and the Rootes Social Building’ – highlights the distance between buildings in the 1960s which students complained about. We were missing  p[ic like this when we did the Sheffield talk.

 

Pic 6 p 31, is 3B series no one by Bernard Schottlander 1968 one of first art works/ sculpture (red thing in rootes).

P 43 the new intake in 1965 – can we locate:

-          Helen Hunt (grad Phil and Politics; now Blackmore, special needs teacher)

-          Michal Jones ( French and European Lit , now Gen Adminsitrator at Wylfa Nuclear Power station on Angelsea

-          Pamela Boulton-Jones  (History,  now radiograopher)

-          Martin Foulser   (left at end of first year)

P 44 pic 3 – Hannah a picture here of the ‘founding professors’

 

P 3 – Nita Benn (nee Bowles) signing building agreement on behalf of union in 1974

P 59 ‘The fundamental task of a University is academic work: teaching, learning and research. Jack Butterworth use to say in his address to new students that the distinguishing feature of University teaching, particularly at Warwick where research flourished, was that it should take students “to the edge of knowledge in their discipline”.’ C interesting spatial metaphor. And important link research and teaching. What did Butterworth mean? Cath has p/copy of pages 60 -74 labelled, as much more explicitly about teaching and learning (spaces).  Perhaps area where v little change – as Shattock notes, ‘ 

Also a section with pictures relating to community teaching encompasses lecturing, laboratory classes, small group work, seminars, tutorials and projects. It may vary according to discipline and year; it may include off-campus reading weekends, day visits to places which relate to a  course, or a term in Venice; above all it is informal, critical and intellectually testing’ (p 59). Though ‘academic study remains an individual, not to say solitary, endeavour … ’ – has this changed with onset of social learning? Heroic image of lone scholar?    

 

Pp 95-110 by Bob Burgess – also a possible interviewee.

He notes parallel between ‘not only physical territory that was ripe for development but also academic territory’.  P 95.

They inherited so little, and had so much to create. – C

Notes that Asa Briggs, commenting on Sussex, said they were ‘redrawing the map of learning’.

‘ Jack Butterworth … enunciated his views to staff and students when he claimed that his fundamental philosophy was to establish a university based on research, teaching and service to the community. His position involved giving the founding fathers and their staff the opportunity to create the academic landscape: an opportunity that persuaded several people to come to Warwick …’ P 95

Professor Phillips-Griffiths (Griff) – founding prof of Maths – ‘When I discovered it was all wide open I agreed to come (to Warwick)’. (cited p 95 – from interview with Bob Burgess in 1990)

Butterworth, ‘Teaching and research in a university are complimentary, for in the best university experience ther is an intimiate connection between rsearch and teaching. Our students are taught by teachers who have regard to research, that is to say by techers who are acquainted with the frontiers of their subject and teach with the attitude of a research worker,  96 ( VC’s report to court 1969-1970 p 6)

 

-          Bit more to go on this, but I have p/copy ….

CL

 

Interesting article from critical gegraphy literature which show how ideas and ideals (he is looking at 'childhood') are constructed through architectural and building practices. He reviews the literature and uses an ethnographic study of a Stainer school in Wales to show how the ideas and ideals which Steiner education has of children (and education) are designed and realised int he building and the practices situated in the buildings.

There are lots of potentially useful parallels with our overall research questiosn and I found myself paraphrasing Krafly to reformulate his ideas in our own research context. For example:

What ideas and ideals about higher education, the university and the university student, are constructed through the design and building of the University of Warwick?

CL

What ideas and ideals about university pedagogy are constructed through the design and building of the University of Warwick?

In what ways do these idea(l)s and their possible manifestations into the built environment change over time?

What are the 'performative'  and 'gestural' features of the University's architectural forms?

The whole article can be accessed via the library's journal online system : Kraftl, P (2005) Building an Idea: the material construction of an ideal childhood, Transactions of the INstitute of British Gegraphers, 31 (4): 488-504.   

  1.      Story at Warwick – Curator of the University

Mead GalleryIn charge of art collection, 800 works across campus, also part of TEACHING LEARNING AND RESEARCH.1993 start date – stalled career, period of longevity, know the history of the university, what it STANDS for and what the university NEEDS in terms of reflecting its values as an institution and what is demanded by and of students. 

2.      History of art at Warwick – change, phases of development etc No idea that it wanted or needed art as part of its university 

PHASE 1 - Eugene Rosenberg – key architect in early design of the university, style = designing large institutional buildings – always had an art collection in each building design, furniture chosen = modernist chairs, mass produced Scandinavian design, large abstract art paintings, pop work e.g ‘Special K’, commercial imagery – new consumption of university students etc – university as MODERN, CUTTING EDGE, new ideas and ideals.Discourse of abstract paintings – existentialism ‘BUYING INTELLECTUAL PAINTINGS FOR AN INTELLECTUAL PLACE’ (4:58)Seven unis founded at the same time – opening of H.E to working class = new wave of student grants, new ‘people’ becoming intellectuals, anxiety towards this new conception of university education, art used to respond to the MODERN needs of the new students. 

PHASE 2 – Syrill Barret? Member of philosophy department late 60s-70s. £200 a year for art – prints, wanted to continue the ‘modern’ art feel, bought on secondary market rather than from artists themselves as Rosenberg did. Continuing the vibrant, intellectual, forward thinking, and dynamic ‘Warwick environment’. 

PHASE 3 – First uni curator, catalogued uni art, ‘past is past, stories of art history are an ARTIFICIAL CONSTRUCT ANYWAY’ – so is this the role of art at Warwick, to artificially construct an intellectual environment with modern ideals and approaches using its architecture/art?Small budget for art – could only afford young and new art pieces – again does this reflect what Warwick stands for?? ‘Young’ and revolutionary thinking regarding education and teaching, research, the clientele of students, learning environment etc?? 

PHASE 4 – Sarah Shalgosky and Brian Follett, new vice chancellor, ‘HOW ART COULD ANIMATE THE SPACES’, budget increased to £10, 000, were able to buy significant art pieces by significant artists, then won lottery, £150,000 on art then, installed 4 major works of art 1. Cosmic Wallpaper – Ramphal 2. Maths institute 3. Business School4. David Bachelor for uni house. NEW BUILDINGS GIVEN NEW ART – is this significant? Forward thinking university? Imposing ideals of student and uni from the beginning of a space’s life?Spaces important for work, e,g uni house 3 storey art… ART part of PUBLIC ART, Warwick is NOT a museum, what is public art? ‘IT ADDRESSES THE PLACE IT’S IN’.Input of students informs the art e.g sociology and cosmic art, Deep Purple history – studying systems, map of life, this is how sociologists make sense of the world etc. ART REFLECTS SUBJECT DISCIPLINE, central to reflecting the intellectual world that the art is placed in. 

PHASE 5 – Nigel thrift - Changing perception of art as interior decoration, wanted art to make an ‘INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTION’ to the university itself, art representative of academic pursuit, form of RESEARCH, art reflective of Warwick’s commitment to research based learning perhaps??Artists put into research collectives here at Warwick now, working with departments etc e.g Olivia Plender? Art not secondary to academic research but more complimentary. 

3.      Curriculum and Art 1960s – Art separate from the ‘business’ of the teaching of the university, more indicative of the ideals of the institution, freedom, access, modern approach to learning, opportunity etcNOW – Central to the academic work itself, art as a process of idea generation and research = ideal of teaching and learning at Warwick, what the university student should STRIVE TO BE – a researcher!  Importance of FUNDING – artists have similar ownership of ideas as intellectuals, but disseminate these ideals in a different way to academics = architecture wider illustration of this, different way of disseminating ideals? Funding bodies encouraging this use of art. ‘FUNDING FOLLOWS FORM OR FORM FOLLOWS FUNDING’ – true of architecture, pedagogy, and spaces throughout history??  Labour government policies at beginning of millennium regarding art in educational institutions = ‘ART WAS A UTILITARIAN DEVICE TO DELIVER SOCIAL COHESION,’ Warwick attempting to distance itself from this idea, wants art to actually contribute to academia – Warwick always been quite REBELLIOUS?? Link back to student riots etc. Art is people working through ideas and putting their findings into the public arena – exactly the same as academics!  

4.      In one statement what does art mean to Warwick University 

‘DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS’ – new ideals of teaching, learning, the student, challenging government policy, and this has been the case from the 1960s to today!

Notes by Laura Evans

UWA/F/PP/4A/9 - Architectural Design, Dec 1958, Vol. XXVIII Coventry Rebuilds

Pg 502-University as part of Coventry rebuilds

• Idea for uni in 1958, University of Coventry name used here, link to Ruth interviews and Lanchester Polytechnic.
• Association of Uni Teachers, needed to be 63% increase in no. of student places at unis by 1966, Coventry could be part of this.
• Existing unis had reached full capacity, Association recommended 5 new unis.
• Arthur Ling and Stewart Johnston, architects with possible uni vision, emphasis on technology and humanities. 

Pg 506 - High Schools Today and Tomorrow, book review

• Advocating a new pedagogy implemented through 'free architecture'.
• Mentions A.S Neill and progressive school
• 'The state schools grow anually more gargantuan and more remote from the individual pupil, and academic requirements imposed from above entangle staff and pupils ever more inextricably.' Could this be applied to Warwick today?
• Book by Dr Bursch, specialist in school design and John Lyon Reid (school architect), on alternative school design to empower pupil and to express individuality. So how new is the 'new' pedagogy of social learning.

UWA/F/PUB/1 - The University of Warwick: A New University in a Modern City

• Intended to admit 300 students by 1965 - continuous process of expansion, reason for rural location? Ruth mentioned this in interview.
• 200 acres acquired initially but, 'the city has been asked whether it would be possible to earmark further land.'
• Interesting community links; '[...] it is our intention not only to plan the university comprehensively but also to consider its relation with the county and the city.'
• Students - encouragement of common rooms, dining rooms, to promote 'full identity with the university' = architecture and identity creation.
• PHOTOCOPY (see Laura E's file) of University of Warwick Academic planning Board, possible interview leads.
• Lanchester College of Technology opened in 1960.
• PHOTOCOPY (L.E file) view of Gibbet Hill farm and Warwick site plan, idea of what existed prior to the university.

UWA/F/PP/4A/10 - University of Warwick, Coventry: The University and The City, by Arthur Ling (City Architect and Planning Officer for Coventry), Nov 1962

• Report examining the size and content of the university, as well as impact on the city.
• Uni starting population of 3000, proposed expansion to 7000; this would generate a further 3800 and 7900 people resident in the area with families etc.
• Warwick wished to provide 80% of accomodation for students on campus to reduce road congestion - this was unheard of in early 60s for universities as most students lived in lodgings, Warwick intent on creating a strong sense of belonging, affiliation and INTERNAL IDENTITY?
• Uni's relationship with Coventry, argued for a link between the city's institutions and local people through extra mural departments in city centre, University Institute of Education in city centre, and possible links with Lanchester via shared social facilities.
• 'It seems most desirable in any case that the isolation of the university within the city should be AVOIDED and this could be achieved by linking the Gibbet Hill site with the city centre by means of university buildings on a lineal basis.'
• PHOTOCOPY (L.E file) of extension map.

Notes by Laura Evans

Yorke, Rosenburg & Mardall (YRM) were the initial architects for Warwick.

www.yrm.co.uk

YRM- ‘innovative approach’ and ‘create timeless building’

Offer architectural, interior design and urban planning services to many sectors.

Ethos- ‘work within the evolving modernist tradition’

 

Clients include 11 Universities. UK Universities:

University College London, University of Cambridge, University of Liverpool, University of Oxford and University of Warwick