The Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, completed by Diamond Schmitt Architects (design architect) with Gibbs Gage (architects of record) has opened at the University of Calgary. The research centre is dedicated to advancing the learning process across a wide spectrum of academic disciplines. The facility was made possible by a $40-million gift from the Taylor Family Foundation.
The highly versatile, technology-rich “incubator” is designed to inspire new approaches to collaborative learning, enhanced by the creative use of learning technologies, flexible spaces and furnishings. The facility is reconfigurable day-to-day, based on the evolving needs of students, teachers and researchers.
?This building offers an extraordinary range of diverse spaces that promote a variety of uses, all centered around an interactive public spine,? said Donald Schmitt, principal of Diamond Schmitt Architects. The heart of the building is a highly flexible public forum capable of effortlessly changing configurations using mobile technology and hidden seats to function as a 400-seat theatre, a flat-floor open space, a teaching lab or a community meeting space.  The main hall, or spine, is filled with natural light and establishes a campus axis announced by two cantilever projections that extend over the front entry plaza and into the campus green on the other side of the building.  “The spine is simple in its clarity, but certainly not in its design,” added Diam...