During the winter of 2021, a remote drawing focus work was organized via Zoom meetings on the topics of learning and working environment in academic libraries, with a specific focus on the InfoCenter at the main building of ETH. Regular exchange at reviews with teaching staff, ETH Library members and students, as well as inquiries on site at the InfoCenter, were the conditions for a reflection on very crucial issues concerning ETH Library's needs and priorities in the context of the development of its spatial conditions and learning environments.
As part of this exchange, students had to understand the complex interplay of needs, necessities, and ideals articulated by ETH library professionals, and position themselves as researchers and consultants, providing research assumptions and refreshing reflections, design proposals and solutions. The exchange of ideas between stakeholders, students and teaching staff, supported a very creative, dynamic and fluid way of approaching solutions.
The design principles that emerged from this focus work enabled 4 of the 7 students to develop their proposals into 1:1 mockup during the workshop. Being compelled to taking into account the conditions of realisation in times of lockdown, it has been decided to work with material that can be found in the public shops which remained opened, and allowing to be worked with a minimum of tooling.