Ömer Akin is Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. His main research interests are in the areas of design cognition and computation. Professor Akin earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon in 1979, and has been on the faculty for 24 years. |
Chapter 16, selection: The Campus: Centered,
Distributed, and Virtual Today we are in the midst of the electronic revolution,
palpably so at Carnegie Mellon. Increasingly, more of the information
we generate is in electronic form. Also increasingly, more of the information
generated in the past is being re-encoded in this form. Communication
through electronics is pervading all channels: telephone, TV, Internet,
buildings and everyday artifacts. This has led to new and better tools
for processing information accurately and in real time. Carnegie Mellon
is a prime exemplar of the information-rich and information-processing
university. All of this means that fundamental changes are taking
place in the structures that accommodate the functions of the university.
In order to communicate, we no longer need to be in the same space with
others or even at the same time in different places (e-mail). We no longer
have to go to the library to obtain the contents of publications (e-collections).
We no longer have to commute to hold conferences (e-conferences). We no
longer have to search distributed sources to find comprehensive and accurate
information (the Internet). Increasingly, we can do things from the comfort
of our office or study without having to go to specific locations. Thus,
the electronic revolution is already transforming the physical structure
of the campus. How far will this go is a question we will address next,
and first from a historical perspective. The university campus, the single most important, physical
organizing concept of an institution of higher learning, has evolved over
several centuries. The campus provides an important indicator of the behavioral
and functional aspects of the university. As the university of the future
emerges, the campus will experience equally important transformations
both accommodating and foretelling academic advances. |
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