New building The Oculus opens tomorrow

Warwick’s new teaching and learning centre The Oculus opens tomorrow, Monday 17 October at 9am.

The centre is the first interdisciplinary building at the University, providing teaching space for all departments.

One of the chief aims for the building was to provide innovative teaching areas, with rooms that can be used flexibly to suit teacher and student.

Inside the centre are 14 seminar rooms and lecture theatres, including campus’s first 500-seater. The rooms have no whiteboards and instead use visualisers. Outside each room is an electronic screen which displays the room’s schedule for the day.

Warwick’s Vice President, Lawrence Young, was keen to create a unique sense of space and light within the centre which explains the curved roof and floor-to-ceiling windows.

Mr Young explained how he wanted the building to interact with the environment; the lecture theatres have natural light coming in whilst some rooms open out to the terrace.

The centre is named The Oculus, meaning ‘eye’ in Latin, partly because the exterior resembles an eye and for the amount of natural light the building receives. The name is also meant to relate to Warwick as a visionary teaching environment.

With regard to the demolition of green spaces in order to build the centre, Mr Young said greenery will be replanted in due time to restore the area.

The centre also focuses on creativity, displaying artwork in the main areas. In the entrance theatre, four screens are used to showcase work from departments across the University. Currently images from the Chemistry department are on display.

The centre is named The Oculus, meaning ‘eye’ in Latin, partly because the exterior resembles an eye and for the amount of natural light the building receives. The name is also meant to relate to Warwick as a visionary teaching environment.

The building cost about £19 million, which Mr Young said was relatively cost-effective. The centre is also relatively energy-efficient using reflective heat.

Mr Young said that although The Oculus does raise the bar for other buildings on campus, about £1 million is put into refurbishing old buildings each year. There are also plans for a new Humanities Building.

Mr Young described the centre as a “real signature project for the University… it sets the scene for the next 50 years.”

He said: “The Oculus was symbolic to our commitment to teaching [and…] how we think about teaching in the future.”

Shivam Trivedi, a second-year History student who has most of his lectures and seminars in the Humanities Building, commented: “The prospect of having new lecture theatres is really exciting because we’ve seen the progress of construction all of our first year.

“Many of my lectures were in boiling hot rooms so new lecture and seminar rooms will be a great improvement.”

While Shivam considers an interdisciplinary building a good idea in some ways, he said: “At the same time it would be nice if the Humanities Building could have some renovations… especially because not everyone will have the chance to have lectures in the new building and so will be stuck in the older cramped rooms.”

You can see some sneak preview pictures of the building below!

Photos: Max Connelly-Webster