The Open University Business School Opens New £11.5 Million Home
The £11.5million building is being named in memory of Lord Young of Dartington who died earlier this year. Lord Young was a social innovator, entrepreneur and champion of lifelong learning. His daughter Sophie Young will perform the official opening of the building, along with OUBS Dean Professor Roland Kaye and Open University Vice-Chancellor Professor Brenda Gourley.
The three-storey, state-of-the-art building brings together 250 OUBS staff who were previously scattered around the OU campus in three buildings, and 80 staff from Open University Worldwide, the OU’s international division.
It boasts the latest in ‘green’ heating and cooling systems and creates an environment designed to encourage interactivity and innovation among staff with a combination of open plan workspaces for different requirements.
The heating and cooling are provided by the environmentally-friendly, low-energy Termodeck system, which distributes warmed and cooled air through the concrete slab, allowing the air to heat exchange directly with the occupied space. The building has been awarded an ‘excellent’ rating of 80% for energy efficiency using BREEAM 98 for Offices (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), one of the highest scoring assessments ever made under the scheme.
OUBS Dean Professor Roland Kaye says:
“The new building provides the School with a 21st century working environment that supports the aspirations of a global, open learning university. We are delighted to name it after Michael Young who championed lifelong learning, the principle on which both the Open University and the Open University Business School are founded.”
Editor’s Notes
The Michael Young Building is home to the Open University Business School and Open University Worldwide (OUW), the OU’s international division which manages the OU’s portfolio of international educational partners and distributes OU learning resources to customers in more than 30 countries.
The project was managed by the OU’s Estates Division. The architects on the project were Jestico + Whiles and the contractors were John Sisk and Sons Ltd.
The official opening of the building will be at 3.30pm on Monday September 23rd. Journalists wishing to attend should contact a member of the Media Relations team on the numbers below.
Michael Young, Lord Young of Dartington (1915-2002) was a major figure in post-war social policymaking. He was an inventor, social innovator and entrepreneur as well as an educator, author, academic, consumer advocate, policy-maker and political activist. Among his many achievements were the creation of the Consumers’ Association, the National Extension College and the Open College of the Arts.
The Open University Business School (OUBS) is Europe’s leading business school and the major provider of management development programmes delivered by supported distance learning. It is one of an elite group of UK and European business schools to hold both the prestigious EQUIS quality kitemark, awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development (efmd), and AMBA (the Association of MBAs) accreditation for its MBA. Currently the OUBS has 30,000 students based in the UK and more than 40 countries. Since its inception in 1983, more than 150,000 managers have studied an OUBS course at Certificate, Diploma or MBA level. The OUBS has also developed a significant research capability based in eight research units, and boasts one of the three largest Alumni Associations for MBA graduates outside the United States.The School is based at the Open University’s Milton Keynes headquarters in Buckinghamshire. Its website can be found at: oubs.open.ac.uk
Contact
OU Media Relations
Fiona Leslie
01908 653256
Neil Coaten
01908 652580
Gary Spink
01908 653343
