The built environment is under pressure to change in this information rich world. There are radical redefinitions of space, how we use it, and the demands we make of it. Our physical spaces require the functionality we expect from our computers, and there exists a higher demand for the aesthetics of space – spaces that inspire, stimulate, enable and motivate.

There are pressures for collaboration. Technology enables us to work together and across disciplines in ways we could not have imagined. The complexity of the world we now inhabit requires us to work together to make sense and recreate it. This is a team effort. All of these pressures and trends have an impact on the learning and collaborative environment of the 21st Century.

To inspire stakeholders to find creative solutions in order to generate results from constrained resources, Ludic Group creates theatres for accelerated learning and working. Spaces that are configured to meet all physical, virtual, multi-media and creative requirements, enabling groups of different sizes to actively engage in collaborative and creative decision making.

We call these DesignWork™ Spaces.

DesignWork™ Spaces enable teams to use design thinking and accelerated ways of working at their local sites. These spaces enable teams to work together more effectively, more creatively and more collaboratively. DesignWork™ Spaces can be designed to accommodate whole business areas of up to 1000 people, provide new learning environments for teachers and educators, or to support specific programmes and projects.

DesignWork™ Spaces include a wide range of collaborative technology and furniture. Tools such as dynamic workwalls promote creativity and make it easy for information to be moved around to where it is needed. Enabling, simple to use technology such as multi-touch collaboration tables and screens accelerate the processing of information. Digitally augmented whiteboards capture anything written anywhere in real-time. Professional quality production equipment enables rapid dissemination of decision across all media.

The methodologies we use to help build our DesignWork™ Spaces are based on over 30 years of research into how environments support learning, collaboration and decision-making. We provide our clients with training on our methods and Design Event approaches. These methods provide repeatable means of enabling teams to collaborate and solve challenges.

An Adaptive Space

The space is designed to adapt quickly over time as the teamwork moves from one modality to the next. These modalities are highly varied in nature: kinesthetic, visual, linguistic, musical, logical, creative. This enables large group structured learning, smaller group work, individual work, formal, informal and collaborative learning and working. Such varied processes, when supported by an inspiring space that adapts to the journey of the decision-making, enables the transformation of complex problems into new opportunities.

Knowledge Rich Working

The DesignWork™ Space is knowledge rich. Equipped with technology, process and data, information is quickly explored and put to use. The development and penetration of computers into the learning process has radically impacted environments for decision-making. Resources for exploration, prototyping, simulating, production and collaboration are readily available. Due to this, the environment is able to produce and support output across all media. The space contains production studios that enable rapid cycles of documentation, dissemination and feedback from a particular context. Built to the needs of the decision-making, the technology of the space provides enabling tools to maintain continuous and asynchronous engagement and collaboration beyond the physical events.

Team work in these spaces is facilitated by expert knowledge worker teams to provide training, process, visualisation and synthesis.

Virtual Collaboration

Work and learning in DesignWork™ Space has both a physical and a virtual character. A support team of technical and subject matter experts create a virtual environment that contains the knowledge bases and the outcomes of the Decision-making. This may be designed and built in real time. It may also be designed and built in collaboration with the learning group as part of the learning process. The virtual environment contains the tools required to continue to work, share knowledge and develop ideas online.

Prototyping & Simulation

When a large group is engaged in collaborative work, it may be useful to construct visual and physical models of conceptual ideas. Simulation, the playing of games, the construction of small worlds, testing of hypotheses, questioning, the reordering of information, scenario testing, mapping, modeling are all tools used for problem-solving processes applying double-loop learning in large groups. Facilities which support these activities may include construction materials for modeling, spreadsheets for financial modeling, large surfaces to write on and iterate ideas, surfaces for moving information around the space, audio-visual authoring tools, screens for running computer simulations between groups, areas for role-play.

Multi-media

The advent of multi-media authoring tools available on laptops has enabled the use and production of multi-media to become an integral component of the process. The impact of the production process itself is becoming understood as a powerful learning tool, as a means of enabling collaborative authoring. A DesignWork™ Space provides the production requirements to enable learning through consuming as well as creating multi-media. The space may be configured as a studio, production and post-production environment to enable the creation of media by and for the learning group. Individual groups may be learning from video or DVD media, or watching the media created by other team mates. The large group may be watching a single item, or there may be many different items being watched in parallel.

By providing the creative tools required, the DesignWork™ Space enables the participants not only to create material but also to distribute it. It is a form of “Learning through Producing” a process we call “Collaborative Authored Outcomes”.

Your DesignWork™ Space

Ludic Group and its architectural team Ludic Banana, designs, advises and creates bespoke DesignWork™ spaces for organisations and businesses around the world. The investment in a DesignWork™ Space is quickly repaid in terms of productivity, the increased speed and quality of learning and decision-making taking place and the engagement of users of the space.