GAD Editorial · Published · · English study · Chinese summary · Study dated 2026-10-06
A university commons has to accommodate conversations that were never scheduled, while allowing someone nearby to finish a difficult piece of work. That tension gives a useful way to compare SANAA's Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne, Grafton Architects' UTEC campus in Lima and ELEMENTAL's UC Innovation Center in Santiago. Each makes shared space central to an academic building. Their differences concern how people can remain connected while occupying separate situations.
At the Rolex Learning Center, the floor rises and falls within a broad, continuous interior. EPFL's architectural account describes quieter areas organised through changes in height and the shapes of internal patios. It also identifies enclosed meeting spaces, including glazed or walled rooms within the larger landscape. The combination matters: the idea of an open learning environment does not require every activity to have the same boundary. A slope can distinguish two areas visually, while a meeting room provides a more explicit enclosure.
This makes the section a working part of the programme. Moving uphill or around a patio changes the relationship between a person, a group and the rest of the interior. Yet a beautifully drawn hill does not establish acoustic privacy by itself. The useful architectural question is where topographic separation is sufficient and where a conversation still needs a room. Treating the entire interior as one homogeneous social space misses that distinction.
UTEC takes shared space into a vertical campus between a highway and a residential neighbourhood. The Pritzker account describes a cascading building whose open spaces were designed to receive ocean breezes. Here, the social interval is distributed through the building's height rather than spread across one undulating floor. Our reading is that the alternation of built volumes and open space makes the route between destinations an important part of university life. Shell Arquitectos is credited as the local architect for the completed first phase.
The UC Innovation Center offers another relationship between enclosure and contact. Its substantial concrete exterior surrounds an interior organised around a glazed atrium. The Pritzker jury highlighted both the visibility of activity across that interior and places intended for spontaneous encounters. Compared with UTEC's exposed intervals, the centre concentrates visual connection inward. Compared with Lausanne's continuous floor, it gives that connection a more clearly vertical form.
Seen together, the projects suggest that encounter depends on the placement of boundaries as much as their removal. A route can pass a shared area without forcing everyone through its centre. A view can make another activity apparent without granting access to it. An enclosed room can support the larger commons by accommodating work that would otherwise conflict with its more sociable uses.
For a design comparison, follow two people: one looking for a colleague and another seeking sustained concentration. Trace their routes, pauses and possible places of retreat on the same section. The resulting drawing will explain more than a count of informal seats. It also leaves room for the university to define operating rules and for occupants to judge whether the proposed balance actually works.