Rather than dictate the location and layout of this space, I thought I’d start with some general principles.
I have made this a wiki, so please rather edit and add your own ideas, rather than replying to the thread.
Some of this is already in place.
Use cases
The space can be used for:
- Training sessions
- Inductions - such as the laser inductions
- Meetings - recently we have been doing blended meetings, with some participants remote
- Workshops - such as those organised by the textiles group
- Individual use - at a large table, or a single-seater
- [Add your own ideas here]
Layout
The arrangement of tables and chairs needs to support the use case:
- Lecture room - facilitator at the head, with rows of tables and chairs facing them
- Meeting room - U-shaped if facilitator dominates, circle or squircle if more collaborative
- Clustered - collaborative working in groups
- Cinema - chairs only, all facing the same way
- [Any other layouts you can think of here]
This requires many smaller tables that can be combined in a range of ways.
Stackable chairs would probably be best.
Presentation facilities
- Projector screen - current position interferes with the flow of people from the front door into the space
- Projector - it MAY be a good idea to ceiling-mount it
- Speaker - for videos, and to hear remote participants in a meeting - current cabling creates a trip hazard
- Microphone - to broadcast local conversation to remote participants
- Webcam on a goose neck - so that presenters can demonstrate things they are doing in front of participants
- Wide-angle webcam to broadcast the local participants to remote participants
We are going to trial a Luna eMeet to see if that is better than just using the laptop speaker.
Non-competing usage
- Layout doesn’t prevent reasonable use of the remainder of the space
- Activity doesn’t block the free flow of people