Overview
In May, we will gather in Edinburgh Futures Institute to explore how futures thinking can help us to conceive positive future learning spaces. We will explore and enact approaches that reimagine contemporary spaces across and beyond campus, and will speculate around the qualities that should characterise learning spaces going forward. Knowledge will be exchanged and constructed through workshops, quick-fire presentations and conversations. The ideas we generate will be collected within co-authored research outputs, with the aim of shaping thinking around the conceptualisation and creation of desirable learning spaces of the near future.
Location
Collaboration Room (Room 4.30), Edinburgh Futures Institute, 1 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, EH3 9EF.
Format
Monday 4 May
09.00 Arrival in Canopy Cafe, then make our way to 4.30 Collaboration Room
09.20 Introduction and Ambitions
09.30 Tensions and Trends in Current Learning Spaces Thinking, with Luke McCrone
10.10 Utopian Spaces - Collaboratively Applying Utopia as Method, with Sian Bayne
10.50 Future Art in Present Spaces, with Jennifer Williams
11.05 Break
11.20 Critical Practical and Operational Issues in Learning Space Design, with Helen Wood
11.50 Conceptualising 'Space', with Isabella Sinn
12.45 Lunch
13.30 Hide and Seek: Writing Privacy Futures into Learning Spaces, with Jen Ross
15.15 Break
15.30 Visualising the Future Classroom, with Emanuele Bardone, Ingrid Forsler and James Lamb
16.30 Visit to fusion teaching studio, with Emma McAllister
17:00 Dinner, cocktails, conversation...
Tuesday 5 May (draft)
09.00 Arrival and coffee in Canopy, followed by making our way to 4.30 Collaboration Room
09.20 Recap of Day 1 with Isabella Sinn, and sharing our 'Yes!' moments
09.40 Brainstorming how we can convert our work from Day 1 into research (and potentially other) outputs
11.00 Postdigital Descreening Through Drawing and Walking in Class, led by Eamon Costello
12.00 Lunch break
13.00 The Digital Backlash in Education: Panic, Politics, or Pedagogy? Hybrid seminar by Ingrid Forsler
15.00 Meeting of Emanuele, Ingrid, James to discuss how we might write-up Day 1 visual workshop
09.00 Arrival in Canopy Cafe, then make our way to 4.30 Collaboration Room
09.20 Introduction and Ambitions
09.30 Tensions and Trends in Current Learning Spaces Thinking, with Luke McCrone
10.10 Utopian Spaces - Collaboratively Applying Utopia as Method, with Sian Bayne
10.50 Future Art in Present Spaces, with Jennifer Williams
11.05 Break
11.20 Critical Practical and Operational Issues in Learning Space Design, with Helen Wood
11.50 Conceptualising 'Space', with Isabella Sinn
12.45 Lunch
13.30 Hide and Seek: Writing Privacy Futures into Learning Spaces, with Jen Ross
15.15 Break
15.30 Visualising the Future Classroom, with Emanuele Bardone, Ingrid Forsler and James Lamb
16.30 Visit to fusion teaching studio, with Emma McAllister
17:00 Dinner, cocktails, conversation...
Tuesday 5 May (draft)
09.00 Arrival and coffee in Canopy, followed by making our way to 4.30 Collaboration Room
09.20 Recap of Day 1 with Isabella Sinn, and sharing our 'Yes!' moments
09.40 Brainstorming how we can convert our work from Day 1 into research (and potentially other) outputs
11.00 Postdigital Descreening Through Drawing and Walking in Class, led by Eamon Costello
12.00 Lunch break
13.00 The Digital Backlash in Education: Panic, Politics, or Pedagogy? Hybrid seminar by Ingrid Forsler
15.00 Meeting of Emanuele, Ingrid, James to discuss how we might write-up Day 1 visual workshop
Activity descriptions
Tensions and Trends in Current Learning Spaces Thinking This session will set the scene for the two days by presenting a recent review of the learning spaces literature which sought to explore the latest tensions and trends shaping university campus spaces.
Utopian Spaces - Collaboratively Applying Utopia as Method Can a learning space be utopic? We will use Levitas's 'utopia as method' as a framework for collective critique and blue-skies re-imagining.
Conceptualising 'Space' Using theoretical perspectives on spatiality, we will explore ways of understanding and framing 'space' that account for the complexities of spatialised, emergent practices in educational environments.
Hide and Seek: Writing Privacy Futures into Learning Spaces This workshop will combine hands-on exploration and speculative fiction-writing, to spark our imaginations about how different forms of visibility and privacy might emerge in future learning spaces.
Visualising the Future Classroom Through visual crowdsourcing and dialogue, we will explore the role that images can play in enabling us to imagine positive future learning spaces (and those conditions that we might be describe as 'positive').
Postdigital Descreening Through Drawing and Walking in Class This session will invite us to listen to audio while drawing, and afterwards contribute to discussion and a collective artefact. Among other things, this will help us consider how educators might carve physical spaces out of, or into, digital. Requires earbuds/headphones.
The Digital Backlash in Education: Panic, Politics, or Pedagogy? This session by Ingrid Forsler is happening as part of the seminar series from the Centre for Research in Digital Education, rather than within our Future Learning Spaces event. However, with its interest in shifting narratives and policies around the relationship between education and policy, it would seem very likely that there will be connections with future learning spaces.
Utopian Spaces - Collaboratively Applying Utopia as Method Can a learning space be utopic? We will use Levitas's 'utopia as method' as a framework for collective critique and blue-skies re-imagining.
Conceptualising 'Space' Using theoretical perspectives on spatiality, we will explore ways of understanding and framing 'space' that account for the complexities of spatialised, emergent practices in educational environments.
Hide and Seek: Writing Privacy Futures into Learning Spaces This workshop will combine hands-on exploration and speculative fiction-writing, to spark our imaginations about how different forms of visibility and privacy might emerge in future learning spaces.
Visualising the Future Classroom Through visual crowdsourcing and dialogue, we will explore the role that images can play in enabling us to imagine positive future learning spaces (and those conditions that we might be describe as 'positive').
Postdigital Descreening Through Drawing and Walking in Class This session will invite us to listen to audio while drawing, and afterwards contribute to discussion and a collective artefact. Among other things, this will help us consider how educators might carve physical spaces out of, or into, digital. Requires earbuds/headphones.
The Digital Backlash in Education: Panic, Politics, or Pedagogy? This session by Ingrid Forsler is happening as part of the seminar series from the Centre for Research in Digital Education, rather than within our Future Learning Spaces event. However, with its interest in shifting narratives and policies around the relationship between education and policy, it would seem very likely that there will be connections with future learning spaces.
Participants
We will assemble as a group of researchers with an interest and background in education futures and higher education learning spaces.
Emanuele Bardone, Professor of Educational Technology, University of Tartu
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Siân Bayne, Professor of Digital Education, University of Edinburgh
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Ingrid Forsler, Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies, Södertörn University
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James Lamb, Lecturer in Digital Education and Education Futures, University of Edinburgh.
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Jen Ross, Professor of Digital Culture and Education Futures, University of Edinburgh
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Isabella Sinn, PhD student, Centre for Research in Digital Education, University of Edinburgh
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Tim Drysdale, Professor of Technology Enhanced Science Education, University of Edinburgh
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Henrietta Carbonel, Scientific Collaborator, UniDistance Suisse
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Luke McCrone, Research Associate, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, Imperial College London
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Pirjo Mõttus, Junior Researcher and Junior Lecturer in Educational Technology, University of Tartu
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Eamon Costello, Associate Professor in the School of STEM Education Innovation and Global Studies, Institute of Education, Dublin City University
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Our local experts
Emma McAllister,
EFI Learning Technology and Design Lead |
Jennifer Williams,
EFI Creative Projects Manager |
Helen-Rose Wood,
Head of Space and Property Management |
Some of our relevant work
Some examples of our work that, time allowing, we might choose to look at before the event in order to potentially shape our thinking.
Forsler, I., Bardone, E. & Forsman, M. (2025). Walls Come Tumbling Down: Imaginaries and Materialities of Future Postdigital Classrooms. Postdigital Science and Education 7, 669–681. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00582-9
For instance, What new and alternative configurations of classrooms are possible?
Forsler, I. (2026). Postdigital Future Classrooms. In: Jandrić, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_110-1
For instance, How might we theorise the idea of a 'learning space'?
Lamb, J. (2025). Conceiving the Future Classroom Through Learning Futures, Postdigital and Learning Spaces Research.
For instance, What can futures thinking bring to the idea of a 'future classroom'?
Lamb, J., & Carvalho, C. (2024). Towards Harmonious, Positive, Postdigital Spaces for Learning.
For instance, What counts as a 'positive' learning space?
Bayne, S., Gallagher, M. and Lamb, J. (2014) Being ‘at’ University: the social topologies of distance students.
For instance, What does 'campus' and 'space' mean within increasingly digitally mediated environments?
McCrone, L., & Kingsbury, M. (2023). Combining Worlds: A Mixed Method for Understanding Learning Spaces. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231173781
For instance, What methods can we use in the evaluation of university learning spaces?
Forsler, I., Bardone, E. & Forsman, M. (2025). Walls Come Tumbling Down: Imaginaries and Materialities of Future Postdigital Classrooms. Postdigital Science and Education 7, 669–681. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00582-9
For instance, What new and alternative configurations of classrooms are possible?
Forsler, I. (2026). Postdigital Future Classrooms. In: Jandrić, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_110-1
For instance, How might we theorise the idea of a 'learning space'?
Lamb, J. (2025). Conceiving the Future Classroom Through Learning Futures, Postdigital and Learning Spaces Research.
For instance, What can futures thinking bring to the idea of a 'future classroom'?
Lamb, J., & Carvalho, C. (2024). Towards Harmonious, Positive, Postdigital Spaces for Learning.
For instance, What counts as a 'positive' learning space?
Bayne, S., Gallagher, M. and Lamb, J. (2014) Being ‘at’ University: the social topologies of distance students.
For instance, What does 'campus' and 'space' mean within increasingly digitally mediated environments?
McCrone, L., & Kingsbury, M. (2023). Combining Worlds: A Mixed Method for Understanding Learning Spaces. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231173781
For instance, What methods can we use in the evaluation of university learning spaces?
Learning spaces videos
In late 2024, a film team from University of Lausanne visited Scotland to record interviews and footage that explored how we might conceptualise and research 'learning spaces'. These were edited into three episodes. Henrietta Carbonel, Tim Drysdale, Sian Bayne and James Lamb contributed to this project.
Part 1. What is a learning space? (16:06)
Part 2. What makes a positive space for learning? (17:03)
Part 3. How to design positive learning spaces (14:02)