Loughborough Design School provides a new home for the various design disciplines at Loughborough University and has become a focus for high quality thinking and design. State of the art facilities allow a broad spectrum of design disciplines to collaborate within an open and transparent environment, with workshops, laboratories, studios, learning and lecture space available for teaching and research. The building is arranged into three distinct elements that respond to the teaching and learning programme for the building, allowing an active yet comfortable relationship between the workshops, studios and offices. The primary circulation spaces run below, alongside and across a top lit glazed void that brings natural light into the deep plan and allows natural ventilation into the building. Facilities are organised to encourage interaction between students, researchers and teaching staff from the various departments that will occupy the building. The volumes of the building help to create an environment that will encourage the informal interchange of ideas.