sustainable learning spaces

A Space Defined: Four Years in the Life of the FSU Digital Studios

Stephen J. McElroy, Jennifer Wells, Andrew Burgess, Jeff Naftzinger, Rory Lee, Josh Mehler, Jason Custer, Aimee Jones, and Joe Cirio, Florida State University

Introduction
Vision
Williams Building
Johnston Building
Training
Reflection

Johnston Building

The Johnston Building at FSU is a two story, historical building with large, pane glass windows, brick exterior walls, and an arch entrance. There are stairs to the front entrance and windows below the first floor, suggesting a basement level. The Johnston Ground Digital Studio opened in the fall of 2011. The William Johnston Building, which opened after renovations in 2011, houses departments from several colleges, including Art History, Interior Design, Retail Merchandising, and Family and Child Sciences. Johnston’s ground floor, also known as Johnston Ground, houses a number of student support offices in addition to the RWC and the Digital Studio, including the Academic Center for Excellence and Advising First.

Computers and Furniture

A computer monitor has a keyboard and mouse in front of it. The monitor's screen says "DIGITAL studio." A round table has four computers on it, each one facing out so that the backs of the computers face each other. There are chairs with wheels placed in front of each computer station. A black storage cabinet is placed in the corner of the room. There are three redish chairs placed next to the cabinet.
Figure 10: Four stand-alone 21" iMac 2.5 GHZ, Core i5, 8GB RAM; (OSX: Lion 10.7.4), one projecting 21" iMac 2.5 GHZ, Core i5, 8GB RAM; (OSX: Lion 10.7.4), four stand-alone Dell Optiplex 990 3.30 GHZ, Core i3, 4 GB RAM; (Windows 7 SP1), one projecting Dell Optiplex 990 3.30 GHZ, Core i3, 4 GB RAM; (Windows 7 SP1), one cart/mobile Dell Optiplex 990 3.30 GHZ, Core i3, 4 GB RAM; (Windows 7 SP1), five Dell Professional P2210 20-inch widescreen flat panel monitors
Figure 11: Two Herman-Miller workstations
Figure 12: One storage cabinet

Chairs and Tables

Seven chairs are placed in a row along a wall. A moveable chair with a grey seat and red back is placed in front of a table on wheels. One chair is placed at a large wood-finished square table. Six red chairs line the wall behind the table.
Figure 13: Twenty-six Herman-Miller Caper Molded Seats: Red
Figure 14: Two Herman-Miller Caper Flexnet Seats: Red
Figure 15: Four Herman-Miller work desks

Peripherals, Projection, Software, Network

A flat scanner is placed on a table. A computer is being projected on a white board type surface. A MAC monitor has the words "Digital Studio" on display. A closup view of an outlet.
Figure 16: Five Apple Keyboards with Numeric Keypad, four Apple Magic trackpads, six Dell kb212-b keyboards, ten MS111 USB optical mice, two Logitech USB desktop microphones, one HP ScanJet HP4850
Figure 17: Two PolyVision Eno Classic Boards, two PolyVision Eno Pens, two Epson PowerLite 450W projectors, two Epson projector remotes
Figure 18: On the Macs: Adobe CS5: Design Standard, Microsoft Office 2011, Gimp, Audacity, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, TextWrangler, KompoZer, FileZilla, VUE: Visual Understanding Environment, iWork '09, Apple iLife

On the PCs: Adobe CS5: Design Premium, VLC Media Player, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, MS Office 2007, KompoZer, VUE: Visual Understanding Environment, FileZilla, Gimp, Jing
Figure 19: Seven network/power floor boxes (each with eight power oulets and eight data ports), two wall power outlet plates (each with two outlets), two Extron A/V wall plates (with VGA and 1/8" audio jacks) for projector connection, one wall data plate with eight data ports, eleven static IP addresses, secure Wi-Fi capability

Inflatable Palm Tree
An inflateable palm tree sits in the coner of the room. One chair is placed behind the tree.

Figure 20: Formerly a stunt double in major motion pictures such as Bikini Bandits and Muscle Beach Party, Inflatable Palm Tree (IPT) came to the Johnston Digital Studio in the summer of 2012. After realizing most of his life had just been filled with hot air, IPT decided he wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people. The Johnston Digital Studio became the ideal home for IPT since the space lacked a sense of natural ambiance. IPT’s tropical, vivid, synthetic branches call to mind crashing surf and pristine white sand beaches. His presence transforms the Studio into a calming oasis, and he creates a tranquil workspace for students engaged in composing processes.
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