Master Plan for the Loughborough University of Technology: An Endless Campus?

The Master Plan for the Loughborough University of Technology is a 143-page document that gathers the work undertaken by the institution to become a university, thus benefiting from the educational policies derived from the 1963 Robbins report in Britain. Arup Associates authored in 1966 a proposal whose main characteristic is its ascription to an infinite grid strategy and a systematized project. The different diagrams and growth schemes represent the geometric synthesis of some compositional and constructive rules: three grids overlap to produce a germ drawing to which a growth pattern is added for its territorial extension. For the sake of flexibility and adaptability, the project tries to avoid architectural obsolescence through the achievement of a “universal space unit”. Hence, a “discipline” is established whose definition turns out to be a succession of limitations. Through the reconstruction of the design process for the Loughborough University, the multiple meanings of the limit concept are portrayed in parallel to its idea of ​​a continuous and endless campus. A strict internal order, an intentionally open reading of the territory and a constructive standardization produce a kind of visual exhaustion of the whole that could be understood as a limit of spatial nature.

Educating for the Cooperative Society

The role of government in fostering HE’s contribution to societal cooperativeness is, in present conditions of high demand, contested both politically and ideologically. Although devolution of decision taking to universities is widely apparent, four types of strong influence remain in government use: mandates, funding incentives, investment in capacity-building, and overall system adjustment. These have fostered changes in the HE policy agenda from the outcomes espoused in the foundational Robbins Report namely: skilling (not prioritized), general powers of the mind, the advancement of learning, and a shared culture of citizenship. Over-skilling now grows, and leaves difficult policy questions such as: occupational filtering down, student debt and loan servicing, bureaucratic drift with related transaction costs, and decline in education standards. Considering what a university is good for, as opposed to good at, is a challenge for many policy makers.

Building on the Backs: Basil Spence, Queens’ College Cambridge and University Architecture at Mid-Century

Higher Education in Britain expanded dramatically during the 1950s and 1960s. The trigger for growth was the Barlow Report of 1946, which recommended an immediate doubling of the number of science students and an increase in the total number of student places, of which there had been c. 50,000 in 1939, to 70,000 by 1950 and 90,000 by 1955. The 1963 Robbins Report continued and accelerated this expansionist policy, proposing that half a million student places be created by 1980. In the event, although funding was less generous than Barlow had recommended, the numbers achieved were far greater, and 85,000 students were in Higher Education by 1950. The impetus for this growth, which included the foundation of seven new universities (the so-called ‘Shakespearean Seven’) and the enlargement of existing institutions, stemmed from an ambitious vision of the role of universities after the Second World War. Higher Education, and particularly scientific training, was seen as one way to maintain Britain’s position on the world stage. Equally important was the principle of widening access, and a concern to broaden the social base of university education found expression in a range of new approaches to design. Within this context, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge also witnessed significant expansion, but in a very particular way and with distinctive results on account of these universities’ collegiate structure. As elsewhere, buildings at Oxbridge for teaching and research were dependent on finance from the University Grants Committee, but the semi-autonomous colleges could draw on their own (sometimes considerable) resources when it came to building. Furthermore, college dons could exercise significantly more influence over the choice of architect than was possible elsewhere. The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge therefore provided an important environment in which new architectural ideas could be explored. An early contribution to the debate was made by the Erasmus Building, a residential block at Queens’ College, Cambridge, designed by Basil Spence in 1958 (Fig. 1). Although the history of Spence’s design is inextricably bound up with its Cambridge context, as an attempt to reformulate the collegiate ideal it also offers a foretaste of the debates that shaped the new universities in the decade that followed.

The Future of Our Universities

This lecture discusses the broad ideas that underlie the Robbins Report, as well as its passionate belief in the crucial value of universities to society. It addresses four broad issues that were considered by both Robbins and Dearing. These issues are concerned with the overall number of students going into higher education, the possibility of financial backing, further expansion, and concerns regarding the relations between universities and the State. The lecture expresses a worry over the gradual degradation of the universities, and stresses that high-ranking officials should help solve the problem of continuous underfunding.

Reginald Victor Jones, C.H., C.B., C.B.E. 29 September 1911 — 17 December 1997

R.V. Jones came to Churchill's notice in 1940 when he identified navigational beams for German bombers, and thereafter developed scientific intelligence throughout World War II. Dissatisfied with postwar plans for military intelligence, he became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen and from 1946 pursued very precise measurements in physics. He became unsympathetic to academic developments that followed the Robbins Report. The Royal Air Force (RAF), the US Air Force, and intelligence circles in the USA always held him in very high repute. Many thought he never received adequate recognition for his wartime work; his Companionship of Honour came almost too late.