Ömer Akin

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
Ömer Akin

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.