With the Bologna Process implementation and the volunteer unification of higher education across Europe a structural reform took place, but the paradigm shift, focusing on the student centered learning, instead of the teacher centered one, is yet to be fully complete.

Research Significance | 

In face of these changes it makes sense to question if the existing university physical settings suit the new European higher education paradigm and perform as an adequate scenario. Thus, this research aims at exploring how the social interaction process and consequent knowledge generation, sharing, acquisition and transmission are a result of space design and its mode of appropriation.

Methodology | 

The first phase grasps the case study selection. Every activity held in the university context is described and grouped in functions. Each function contains several categories of space and each category of space considers a set of illustrations. These illustrations comprehend diverse functional representative spaces.
The second phase comprehends the scope of several topics: scale, actors, learning category, interaction, environmental characteristics and morphology. These subjects are typified for the definition of the analysis criteria.
The third phase consists on the execution of the illustrations’ characterization sheets; according to the analysis criteria of phase two.

Discussion of Results / Main Conclusions | 

The analysis of the illustrations’ characterization sheets will lead to the category of space characterization sheet and the complete mapping profile.

Outputs | 

The final output considers the design of a mapping profile, which will provide guidelines to create or modify a setting in order to facilitate predetermined learning experiences and interactions. It will provide a practical support for the creation and renovation of higher education facilities.

Supervisors | 

Teresa Heitor and Pablo Calvo-Sotelo