We are always proud to collaborate with The European Consortium for the Learning Organisation (ECLO) not least in the run up to their annual conference which naturally generates a buzz of stimulating ideas and potential discussions. This year's theme is 'Creating the Capacity for Change'. Steve Harding from The University of Central England is presenting a session on new city spaces and has kindly agreed to share his preparatory thoughts with us. You can find more information about ECLO's conference in Prague on the event page on KB.

Background

The European Union has aspirations to be leading the world in terms of a knowledge -based economy through the Lisbon Agenda.

Cities have a distinctive place in the economic development picture envisaged by Lisbon. Emerging work patterns show the huge growth of the independents in this knowledge economy, many people acting as freelancers and home workers (Leadbetter and Oakly, 1999).

This new creative class (encompassing technology, tolerance and talent Florida, 2002) thrives in places where people can mix and develop new ideas, form new networks and create new content. Handy also describes this in the rise of the portfolio worker, highlighting the phenomenon of freelance individuals with a diverse client base, forming and re-forming relationships, to deliver projects and services to their clients (Handy, 2004).

The communities of practice literature also illustrates the need to develop learning approaches for groups of people linked through their shared work interests and through their professional practice (Wenger,2002).

Notions of the “creative city” have furthermore emphasised the need to focus on concepts such as learning, connectivity and heterogeneity of places (Landry, 2000) and with the rise of the networked society (Castells,1996) considerations of globalisation and localisation also are key aspects in the way city economies are developing.

There is also another side to this broadly optimistic view of the world, the excluded those without networks connected to economic success and geographically segregated groups.

Given the above conditions, what sorts of spaces and structures should we be developing in our cities to meet the challenges of the networked society and what roles can a university usefully play in this?

In seeking to find answers to this a reflection on the role of the university in the city is a good starting place. In the “Unfinished City” Thomas Bender describes the role of the urban university as a place for connecting research in partnership with city dwellers and for developing an understanding of the economic forces affecting citizens of the city, both newcomers and existing communities (Bender, 2002).

Proximity matters to the creative economy, with the need for individuals to find places to study and to learn whilst living alongside other businesses and communities.

In Birmingham, the east side of the city, where the key creative quarter is located, had hardly any residents in 1990. Now thousands are coming back to the city attracted by the new economy and lifestyle not found in the suburbs.

Students as an economic force also provide a key ingredient to city living in this mix of young urban professionals (Nathan and Unwin, 2006). Students are a socio-economic force in their own right, a key component in the growth of cities.

On the individual level as a stimulus to learning, the city is also a place of imagination, for unplanned (serendipity) meetings and for refuge, for escape and anonymity.

The university has been addressing these issues in Birmingham, particularly as the city moves from an industrial one to a future, which holds knowledge as a key component in the economic success of all of its residents.

Birmingham has undergone substantial economic changes with the steep decline of the manufacturing sector and the increasing diversity of its citizens living in the city.

UCE Birmingham is a new university with a long history of artistic and design excellence in the city – the art school was built in the 1890’s the Conservatoire in the early part of the century and most recently the Technology Innovation Centre built as part of the millennium projects (the venue for ECLO in 2005).

The challenges faced by the university have been crystallised in a set of key concepts to drive the university forward –by developing a distinctive role in the arts, the employability of our graduates, championing design, developing the community and a renewed focus on applied research.

This paper discusses the role of specific places planned by the university in response to the challenges facing the city region and the university itself.

Three case studies are presented, The Screen Media Lab, the Centre for Design and the Moseley Exchange Project (a project where the university has had an indirect, facilitative role).

All three are in various stages of completion, so reflection at ECLO will be important to incorporate into the ways the spaces are developed conceptually and organisationally and for the design of the physical spaces best suited to meet these needs.

 

Three examples of approaches to the knowledge economy and the university:

Screen Media Lab

The notion of a centre supporting the burgeoning digital economy in Birmingham had been discussed for some time by the university. In common with many post industrial cities a new creative quarter had been slowly growing in the east of the city driven by an entrepreneurial mind set (see custard factory home to over 500 creative businesses, www.custardfactory.com).

The university had initially envisaged a large scale iconic build near the city centre to bring together a range of ICT related subject areas. The approach required a massive capital spend and a large scale restructuring of at least two university faculties. However, the demand for training and management development services was not clear. The location at the top end of the development was also dependent on the building of a new city library for foot fall. The idea stalled for at least two years.

The interim solution was the Screen Media Lab (SML) – a 4,000 sq ft development rented and fitted out by the Custard Factory within the creative quarter. SML has a flexible focus in terms of spatial layout, a ground floor with offices and IT training, with small rooms for technical purposes. SML also has a mezzanine again with an open plan aspect which can change focus depending on need.

This flexibility in approach has enabled the university to move quickly (in under a year) to establish an effective learning and technical support in Eastside. It now houses an enterprise management training provision for new businesses, the regional agency for connecting businesses with opportunities on behalf of the Regional Development Agency called Digital central (www.digital-central.co.uk) and has had several iterations in technology moving between university sites in response to need. (Apple based technology in particular).

The key issues from this development have been:

• Developing a learning centre in the community (proximity matters)

• A rental solution, quick to implement and to move to new larger premises if required in coming years

• A partnership approach explicit from the start – the landlord is the Custard Factory itself

• Developing flexible space for re-configuration

• UCE staff members (users) instrumental in the decision making process at all stages

• The ability to grow organically from this space as the media quarter develops

• See www.mediacontentlab.com for the services provided by the centre

The Centre for Design

The design centre concept arose from a desire in the university to develop facilities adjacent to its School of Jewellery, an historic building in the city centre. Two feasibility studies were done in 2000 and 2002 supported by the RDA, but the market for the proposed building remained unproven and the location was mainly driven by expediency (the site next to the School of Jewellery was vacant and the university was expected to develop this site with incubation facilities primarily in mind).

Consultants DCA, (see www.dca-consultants.com) were appointed in mid 2005 with a brief to test the market for design, to assess the different strands of design found in the university, to suggest new resources to meet need, to develop partnerships to realise any new build and to address governance issues.

New build was therefore near the end of this process, rather than the starting point for intervention as was the case in the two previous studies.

In support of this process an internal UCE group was set and an external Advisory Group of employers.

From the research, the need for design services was clear in the position of many local firms to move up the value chain. This seems to be a common phenomenon in post industrial cities like Birmingham, seeking to develop existing firms in new ideas to stay in business and remain competitive. However, demand for new incubation space was less clear.

A key dynamic in developing new ideas identified in the consultations was in the area of cross specialist working. This process is sometimes referred to as “breakthrough”, in that novel ideas are generated by experts with different perspectives and expertise who can co - develop novel ideas with client companies and organisations.

This approach is also undertaken, for example, in the planned Network Oasis Project in Finland providing a new space for researchers to meet cross and work across specialisms (see www.carelian.fi).

The resulting idea for a design centre is to focus on an approach focussed on inter- disciplinary working. A champion will develop the marketing strategies working with the best of the university’s academics to develop new approaches to design issues. In this way a multi disciplinary team can help a client reflect on possible scenarios and the implementation of solutions to then move forward.

The type of people working in this new space will be a combination of existing staff seconded to the centre with new staff recruited to developing areas such as system design.

The emphasis on the physical space is for new places for informal and formal working, challenging spaces to provoke new ideas and to be a natural place to meet up and chat over a cup of coffee.

So, from an iconic high profile large -scale built project, the design centre will be grown as a new space as a hub for existing practice, as a catalyst for new thinking and serendipity spaces for chance meetings.

This can be implemented quickly by opting for a rental solution in Phase One. A city centre venue is now being developed with an emphasis on an interesting and stimulating layout to facilitate networking and ideas generation.

Phase two, the new build, will draw on the lessons learnt from this model and will potentially reflect on the way the university arranges itself internally in the faculties for both teaching and research aspects.

Challenges for this approach will be to facilitate work across cultures. There will be a need to be empathy shown by the university staff – to understand how academic and industrialists see the world and to find ways of sharing perspectives without losing focus and to develop co-produced solutions (Argyris and Schon, 1996).

Getting the internal expert and external expert mix right will be a key challenge also recognising the core group of six academics will need to be supplemented by a periphery of maybe ten colleagues. This resonates with Handy’s views on portfolio workers as well as that of Mintzberg (1989).

The Moseley Exchange

The Exchange represents another aspect of the knowledge economy, connecting to local communities.

Moseley is a suburb of Birmingham, home to many of the “creatives” working in the city as well as a student population. To the north it joins the famous South East Asian “Balti Restaurant Belt”, but an area also with high unemployment, which itself adjoins Eastside.

The aims of the Moseley Community Development Trust (CDT) are to develop Moseley for all the citizens of the area, focusing on employment, the social economy and supporting community health issues (see www.moseleycdt.com).

The current building is the old telephone exchange in the centre of the neighbourhood. It already is home to six organisations supporting the social economy.

The objectives of the CDT are to fundamentally change the day time economy of the area, which increasingly is dominated by bars and pubs, squeezing out retailers and creative small businesses because of the property prices.

This phenomenon can be described as the “leaky bucket” local facilities gradually leaking away to the suburbs and out of town places (see new economics foundation www.neweconomics.org).

Consultants, DCA recommended the trust develops a notion of “third space”, rather than simply providing new incubation space for local creatives.

A third space is one between home and work. There is patchy demand for freelancers leaving their home working space to de-camp into a new facility; rather an enhanced space for meeting clients and other freelancers was seen as the way forward, over and above existing spaces such as bars. (see www.dca-consulting.co.uk)

IT connectivity is also seen as something already in place by the freelance community, although the need for a wireless network in such a new space is seen as important.

This fits the view of Leadbetter - the new professionals seeking independence and already living a “wired” life.

The CDT Board has accordingly decided to invest in a new focus for the building – a third space, between work and home to attract creative individuals and all entrepreneurs to a place where they can network and create new opportunities. So it has an implicit knowledge transfer focus, with an emphasis on the social economy.

Architects Mueller Kneer (www.muellerkneer.net) have taken on this challenge and also added aspects for colour, light and sound in the new space, a contemporary design which will bring a new focus to the centre of Moseley as a creative urban village. The meeting spaces will also be retained for community use such as the local philosophy club and for yoga.

The architects have suggested a refit of the existing building to create new public spaces on the ground floor, quiet spaces for 1:1 meetings, a flexible building to enable showcasing of art.

The second and third floors will be home to up to 20 social enterprises and agencies focusing on the creative sector, regeneration, ICT and the environment. In this way, a critical mass of agencies and entrepreneurs can mix and mingle to develop innovative solutions for the locality and the city region. The university’s Business School is involved in this process.

 

Some key learning points for discussion

Perhaps the key point is from the start to differentiate the needs of separate groups of people in the knowledge economy and to develop scenarios for future uses.

An approach of co- development makes this possible, the university working with interested groups to jointly explore possibilities.

This is supported by using external consultants who can embrace a formative view of this as a process (this includes economic and business consultants as well as architects).

Additionally, making the decision making processes explicit to partners and having formal consultative meetings in the planning stages is also helpful.

It is also helpful to see where specific university knowledge based projects “fit” into local and regional strategies and where synergies exist and can be created. These approaches are key for the urban university if it is to support the growth of the knowledge economy in our cities.

 

References

Argyris, C and Schon, D (1996) Organisational Learning vol 2. Addison Wesley, New York
Bender, T (2002) The Unfinished City, New York and the metropolitan area. New York Press
Castells, M (1996) The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell
Florida, R (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class
Handy, C (2004) The New Alchemists, Hutchinson, London
Landry, C (2000) The Creative City, a toolkit for urban innovators. Comedia, Earthscan
Leadbetter, C. and Oakley, K (1999) The Independents – Britain’s new cultural entrepreneurs. Demos, London
Mintzberg, H (1989) Mintzberg on Management, London, MacMillan
Nathan, M and Urwin, C (2006) City People, city centre living in the UK, IPPR centre for cities, London
Wenger, E (2002) Communities of Practice, learning meaning and identity, Cambridge University Press.Pp130

Steve's background:

Steve Harding works for the University of Central England in Birmingham in the Corporate Development Centre. He is responsible for cross faculty university issues, particularly on the creative industries and community related themes. He works closely with economic development agencies to see how the university sector can best support businesses and communities in the West Midlands region. He has a particular interest in value chains and how small firms can be supported in developing links to move to design focussed products. He is Chair of a Community Development Trust (www.moseleycdt.com) and is also Chair of the Initiative for Social Entrepreneurs www.i-se.co.uk).

Steve has been a member of ECLO for many years and hosted their 12th International Conference in Birmingham, UK in 2005.

Steve.harding@uce.ac.uk