ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the conversational processes which comprised the early design stages for a new science teaching facility at Ireland's largest university. In a proposal to the national funding authority the university promised a transformation of the undergraduate experience of studying science, which would follow the provision of funding for new buildings. When the funding was awarded, the authors participated in a series of design workshops in a variety of different roles. It might be expected that a common understanding of learning processes would inform the design of such teaching facilities. The reality described here is that there were many different understandings of what constituted effective teaching and learning strategies. During the wide range of different conversations which took place, the faculty moved quite a distance from a conventional lecture/laboratory approach to teaching and began to embrace contemporary approaches which enable the social aspects of learning. Some of these understandings were aided by participation in conversations about building design which were not unlike the kind of classroom conversations we are now trying to encourage with our students. Towards the end of the process it began to look like the transformation in the undergraduate experience, which the university administration had promised in the initial proposal, might become real. At the time of writing, the new facility is in the final stages of design.
