The Students’ Union at Bournemouth University commissioned Feria Urbanism to run an engagement project to discover how students wanted the new Student Centre to perform.

The results were used to inform the detailed design and fit-out stages of the design and planning process as the project moved towards construction.

Our project methodology involved three key stages of engagement. The first was a series of one-to-one interviews between the study team and stakeholders that allowed them to make known their own position on the anticipated purpose and function of the new building. These themes were then used to inform the second stage, a half-day participatory workshop, attended by 20 students and was a core part of the engagement exercise.

In parallel with these two strands of work was a third element, an ongoing observational study and photographic record of student behaviours — for example, how people use indoor and outdoor space around the campus at the present.

The final design of the Student Centre is a direct result of many of the ideas generated by our three-stage process. The building opened in 2015.