Rickes Associates (RA) reviewed existing instructional spaces, including 84 general-purpose classrooms and 46 departmentally controlled instructional spaces. Information was gathered on the 763 courses and the more than 1,000 special events scheduled in the 84 classrooms distributed across 21 buildings on campus. To explore use patterns, RA also held meetings with designated departments identified as controlling significant amounts of instructional space.

From this analysis, RA presented three findings: the average square footage per student station needed to be increased, the number of schedulable hours needed to be decreased, and the percentage of seats occupied when a room is in use needed to be increased. These findings translated into recommendations for additional appropriately sized general-purpose classroom space for Brown University.

RA examined options and opportunities to use conference rooms as instructional space to meet the immediate need for small- and mid-sized seminar rooms. Changes in policy were also addressed as a means to enhance the utilization of existing instructional spaces. (1999)