While many scholars still enjoy a room of one’s own on campus, the shift towards shared offices and hot-desking has moved up a gear as several universities open major academic buildings with few or no single-occupancy offices.
Among the UK institutions with new or rebuilt buildings in the past 12 months including far fewer individual offices are the universities of Glasgow, Leicester and Sheffield, plus Nottingham Trent University. The renovated UCL Institute of Education reflects the “rising popularity of flexible, collaborative and less territorial spaces for staff members”, according to the architects.
But the loss of individual faculty offices has not proved a hit with all academics, with one Russell Group professor telling Times Higher Education that the need to either share an office or hot-desk had driven him to early retirement.
“The offices were tiny – they were too small to keep books, papers and files or to hold meetings,” he said. Booking meeting rooms for student hours was “impractical”, “another hassle” and “may not be possible if the need for a meeting is urgent”, he added.
