Problem
Concentrated, cloistered universities, with closed admission policies and rigid procedures which dictate who may teach a course, kill opportunities for learning.
Solution
Establish the university as a marketplace of higher education. As a social conception this means that the university is open to people of all ages, on a full-time, part-time, or course-by-course basis. Anyone can offer a class. Anyone can take a class. Physically, the university marketplace has a central crossroads where its main buildings and offices are, and the meeting rooms and labs ripple out from this crossroads—at first concentrated in small buildings along pedestrian streets and then gradually becoming more dispersed and mixed with the town.
Related Patterns
… the Network of Learning (18) has established the importance of a while society devoted to the learning process with decentralized opportunities for learning. The network of learning can be greatly helped by building a university, which treats the learning process as a normal part of adult life, for all the people in society.
Give the university a Promenade (31) as its central crossroads; and around the crossroads cluster the buildings along streets — Building Complex (95); Pedestrian Street (100). Give this central area access to quiet green — Quiet Backs (59); and a normal distribution of housing — Housing In Between (48); as for the classes, wherever possible let them follow the model of Master and Apprentices (83) …
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 231.