Mark McVay, one of this month’s guest bloggers, is design director in the Los Angeles office of the architecture firm SmithGroup.

Campus architects and planners design buildings to stand the test of time and remain permanent parts of a campus fabric. But one of the biggest challenges the designers confront is continuously adapting to changing technologies, curricula, pedagogy, and enrollment. The most successful campus buildings not only make such adaptations, but also enhance campus culture through significant place-making.

The current “Millennial” generation, however, is introducing new ways of interacting in and using space, and is challenging decades-old planning standards. The Millennials’ seamless embrace of technology is driving some of the biggest changes.

Digital teaching tools are now commonplace. Distance learning now links students and faculty members around the globe. But maybe the most serious consequence of the digital revolution is that it is redefining the social aspect of learning. Millennials take digital technologies and improvements for granted. Chatting, texting, and network-gaming environments create global interaction.

The impact of all this on learning spaces is subtle, but significant. Whereas previous generations use electronics primarily on an individual basis, Millennials see them as opportunities for dynamic social interaction. Clusters of students huddle around a computer sharing ideas—and approaching full immersion.

The key here is the simultaneity of input. It’s not uncommon to see a student who has a cell phone beside one ear and an iPod earbud in the other—and who is typing on a laptop with a display split between a term paper and a streaming YouTube video. The Millennial generation effortlessly juggles multiple sources of simultaneous information.

Designing for this generation means providing wireless Internet access and readily accessible power. It means keeping in mind wire management and ergonomics. And it means encouraging changes in behavior that maximize interaction at both the local and universal scales.

Classroom-planning models that focus on maximum efficiency often fall short in supporting impromptu student clusters, an aspect of interaction that these students take for granted. The old notion of a public square can now be recreated in multiple locations throughout a campus—even in the classroom. Architects must plan environments that support more information throughput, and thereby improve the quality of learning.

These developments give us opportunities to increase the experiential component of learning—and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. The shifting roles of spectators and participants in networked gaming environments are also intriguing, and could have dramatic effects if applied in classrooms.

How can architects and planners create academic spaces that respond to this changing culture? Should we create a wireless, networked “dinner theater” space with tiered seating and lounge furnishings? Or perhaps a spherical classroom arrangement mirroring the multi-user interaction—student to student, row to row, and instructor to students? Both of these ideas illustrate challenges to the static monologue of a traditional classroom.

And how does this culture affect the public space of a campus? Will this multiple-simultaneous condition pervade the fabric of an institution, or will it remain only a private experience, the clicking and tapping of so many individual screens? Only one thing is certain: The answer will likely come from a careful discussion with these unique individuals for whom technology has always been second nature—if we can get them to turn off their iPods. —Mark McVay