Oregon State University Learning Innovation Center

At Oregon State University’s Learning Innovation Center, what begins in the classroom could someday change the world. The Learning Innovation Center is designed to promote a community of success—drawing energy and inspiration from students, educators, and the institution, to positively impact the world.

Working with building designer Bora, Knot Studio’s environmental graphic design team used the organizing principles of transformation and evolution, a community of success, and OSU’s impact on the world as the foundation for placemaking graphics. The 12 colleges of the University served as an inspiration to convey the themes behind these organizing principles.

From the outset, the Learning Innovation Center was destined to be a groundbreaking design. The building’s design emerged from a desire to embrace a new paradigm on university campuses, configured after in-depth discussions with educators on how to re-imagine the learning experience. Home for OSU’s Honors College, the Learning Innovation Center also serves every department in the University, with 2,300 classroom seats in 14 unique settings and 640 seats of informal learning space. A hub for multi-disciplinary interaction, the Learning Innovation Center seeks to create engaging interactions—whether students are learning through each other in break-out areas or learning from educators in 600- and 300-seat arena classrooms. Configured to host the latest technology, the classrooms allow teaching in the round. The Parliament classroom draws from its British counterpart as a forum to encourage debate and conversation.

Knot Studio’s environmental graphic design framework includes imagery representing the fields of study within each college depicting ongoing research at OSU and throughout the world, and visuals communicate a sense of place. Knot Studio deploys these graphic elements throughout the building, classroom entries, and other sites. The graphics program endorses the idea of propelling students to think beyond themselves to become members of a community, and the classroom designs reflect the need for students to learn and grow in multiple classroom formats.

Expansive, richly re-colored photographs connect OSU students to the outside world without leaving the classroom. With so much to offer the world, OSU students who spend time in the Learning Innovation Center find inspiration from the building itself and Knot-designed visual communications that convey an inspired worldview.