A Room with a Kettle

Every building has a threshold – a point at which something starts or ceases to happen. Crossing that threshold is not always easy. Some buildings just seem too difficult to enter: they carry meanings and associations best avoided.

It is an obvious point that to deliver wider educational services we need people to willingly cross the threshold – ideally with hope rather than apprehension in their hearts. Well designed buildings make you want to enter them. They create a place you want to be

At a recent seminar by the Open University I heard someone describe their preferred place to encourage and nurture wider participation in learning as a room with a kettle. That sounds like a safe place. It sounds like a place you would enter.