S1, Ep2 Solving the ’problem’ with academic workplace

It’s a brave dean that tests out a new way of working on academics and research staff - and yet that’s exactly what the School of Engineering at the University of Melbourne did. The future workspace at the Melbourne School of Engineering (MSE) will need to accommodate over 1800 users across three locations by 2025. To provide for its people and its industry collaborators – its workplace would need to become quite different. Anticipating the challenge that comes with a new way of working, the school commissioned a pilot workplace study called 'Space Lab' – a reference to a living lab, where ‘researcher’ becomes the ‘researched’. Principal Evodia Alaterou invited MSE’s Professor Andrew Western from the Department of Infrastructure Engineering in to step through the experiment. Acknowledgement This episode of Hassell Talks was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders past and present. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the land where we live, work, and learn. Credits Edited and Produced by Prue Vincent