Integrating Sustainability in the Master Planning Process

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

With AASHE rolling out its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) earlier this year, the need to better integrate related planning efforts is clear. On many campuses, other than exercises related to accreditation the master planning process may be the best known and best integrated planning on campus. This workshop at SCUP–45 is very timely:

Audience: Campus planners involved in advancing sustainability through the effective use of master planning and appropriate measures at various planning levels.

Abstract: As the concept of sustainability is gaining momentum and many universities are committing to measurable environmental goals, planners are exploring strategies for integrating sustainability into the master planning process. One of the key challenges is incorporating measurable goals at different planning levels, where the required information and data may not be readily available. This workshop will review emerging methodologies for evaluating environmental performance indicators and for integrating sustainability in a comprehensive master plan.

Learning Outcomes:

• Assemble and organize sustainability goals, policies, and regulations relevant to the master planning process.
• Identify the key elements and metrics of a sustainable master plan.
• Test approaches for integrating sustainable design and planning goals in the master planning process.
• Review methodology for evaluating measurable outcomes of the sustainable planning process.
• Explore the process for reporting on sustainability outcomes.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tuscon, AZ - Step II and Step III

A Perfect Marriage of Old, New: Emerson's 'Replication' of the Paramount Theater (Boston)

Robert Campbell, the Boston Globe's architecture critic, apparently loves everything about Emerson College's restoration of the Paramount Center. What's not to like?

Note: Emerson was a recipient of a $200,000 Getty grant in 2006 and Emerson's full report back to the Getty is available on SCUP's Campus Heritage Preservation Network (CHPN) web site.

Some stories have a happy ending. The new Paramount Center on Washington Street is one of the triumphs of recent Boston architecture and urbanism.

The center, which was scheduled to host its first performance last night, is the perfect marriage of the right client and the right place. The client is Emerson College, which brings the kind of vital youthful activity that can regenerate a neighborhood. The place is the Paramount Theatre, a classic movie palace designed in 1932, at the height of the Art Deco period, but abandoned since 1976.
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This is also a marriage of old and new. The old is the Paramount Theatre, now lovingly restored to its original seductive glamour. The new is all the amazing and exciting modern stuff that’s been added to it. Some of that is in the Paramount Theatre itself, and some is next door in the center’s other building, known as the Arcade. There’s a black-box theater, a film screening room, rehearsal and practice rooms, a new backstage with a truck dock, lobbies, classrooms, offices, a student cafe, you name it. There’s even, up above everything where the views are, a top hat of dorm rooms for 262 future students.

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This is what makes good cities: the juxtaposition of new and old in one place, so you feel connected to history while you look forward to the future. Paramount Center embodies the wonderful urban paradox in which memory meets invention, the old and new converse with each other. The Paramount interior looks all the more 1930s because of its contrast with the neighboring architecture of 2010.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

From Living Buildings to Living Campuses

This is a recent article from Planning for Higher Education. If you are a SCUP member, you have the print version of this. At the moment, anyone can read the online version here. However, very soon the journal contents will be a member-only benefit of joining the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP). The authors, Tony Alfieri, David Damon, and Z Smith, conclude:

There are four key steps that can help institutions define a clear plan for their future. These steps focus on both efficiency improvements in existing campus assets and future strategic development. Develop a comprehensive sustainable master plan [that] integrate[s] sustainable initiatives with the institutional mission . . . Install energy retrofits in existing buildings . . . Establish high-performance guidelines for future buildings . . . includ[ing] policies for procurement and for approval of future development . . . Commit to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

We would note that this article focuses on energy and climate aspects of sustainability. A fifth item now needs to be added to that list: Ensure that your campus engages with the Sustainability Assessment, Rating & Tracking System (STARS), which is formally launches this month, with more than 115 campuses already signed up.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Science & Engineering Precinct at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL

This campus project received a SCUP 2009 Merit Award for Planning for a District of Campus Component. The jury said “ . . . they are very clear in articulating their goals . . . stands above others . . . pretty clever phasing . . . very well thought out . . .” "Many project requirements were considered and five options were prepared. The boldest and most transformative one was chosen to integrate classrooms and labs, promote interdisciplinary thought, and encourage a collaborative, engaging culture . . . The plan transforms the area from a suburban, car-oriented environment to a pedestrian and transit-oriented area by incorporating passive open spaces into a cohesive new landscape and pathway system." Project Team: University of Alabama, and HOK, with Earl Walls Associates now Xnth. The University of Alabama Campus Master Plan is available on line here.

Master Planning for Sustainability

Ben Eisen explores the relationship between sustainability initiatives and campus planning:

Call it a sign of the times. For decades, sustainability initiatives in higher education were conceived and executed through grassroots, bottom-up efforts, from sustainable investments to campus recycling programs. But as stakes and publicity rise, and sustainability initiatives like the American College and University President's Climate Commitment take center stage, higher education is witnessing the growth of a top-down institutionalized approach to sustainability.

One of the clearest signs of this paradigm shift is the prominence that sustainability initiatives are receiving in university-wide strategic master plans. Green initiatives are now taking their place alongside more established campus issues in the long-term vision process.

Density Talks: Should College Towns Listen?

This interesting article from Concentrate examines the city planning of Ann Arbor in the context of planning, related to density and other things, at other college towns, like Boulder, Charlottesville, and Detroit. Bottom line: 

"But there may still be lessons to be gleaned. Could Ann Arbor find enough cooperation to commit to several thousand more residents in downtown? Both Mosey and Egner point to a groundswell of cooperation among Detroit nonprofits, business leaders, and institutions, all willing to roll up their sleeves and work towards a common vision: walkable urban density."

Is It Time to Rethink Physical Space?

In University Business, this article by Marisa Manley is titled "Building the Long-Term Value of Assets" and subtitled "Why it’s an opportune time for colleges and universities to rethink physical space." 

Capturing value during an economic downturn requires institutional leaders to think strategically about needs, goals, and physical space. When devising a strategic plan:

• View facilities as part of an overall business plan. Universities do well when their leaders consider property and space as part of the institution’s investment choices, considering all options as opposed to conducting a desperate search for space when needs are already pressing.

A Tight Space for New Rutgers Medical Buildings

This New York Times article by Amy Rowland comes (on line, at least) without illustration, but is still good. Here is a Rutgers news item with images of the nursing building. 

It is challenging enough to build two state-of-the-art medical education buildings, but the challenge is even more formidable when the project site is clipped by elevated railroad tracks. This is the problem Rutgers University had to overcome to build its new College of Nursing and Institute for Health buildings here.

The two gray-and-red structures are on a rectangular 0.95-acre parcel of land, its northwest corner cut off by an Amtrak and New Jersey Transit elevated rail line. The buildings, at 110 Paterson Street, face each other in a north-south orientation with a shared courtyard.

“The site’s geography made it very difficult,” said the project’s architect, Larry Wente of Gertler & Wente, referring to the fact that the narrow side of the rectangular site fronts the street. “Because of the shape of the site, the frontage of the main entry is very narrow, so to have the buildings have street presence was very challenging. And it’s really exacerbated by the Amtrak line.”

A Good Neighbor

The new Dorrance H. Hamilton educational facility at Thomas Jefferson Medical College is downtown Philadelphia's largest infusion of green space in 50 years and the campus' first new building in 15. Town and gown considerations were important in its design.

"Burt Hill was approached to design the new 135,000-sq.-ft. Dorrance H. Hamilton Building, an educational facility that would create an integrated classroom setting in order to foster a team environment among students. During initial discussions, the school strongly emphasized its need for campus identity. For years, the urban Philadelphia grounds had been scattered throughout several city blocks, which made it difficult to unite the campus. The lack of campus identity also made it hard to establish a relationship with the neighboring community. It was clear that the new space would need to be aesthetically pleasing, as well as functional."

Read more here:
http://www.peterli.com/cpm/resources/articles/archive.php?article_id=2228

A Master Plan for Facilities at the University of Southern Maine's Lewiston-Auburn College

By 2004, the University of Maine's Lewiston-Auburn College had grown from 273 students to 1,227 and its original building, at 89,300 square feet, was completely filled by academic programming. This article in Business Officer by Pamela Roy, Jan Phillips, and Robert C. Klinedinst Jr., describes how the campus created a 15-year plan for growth with 10 construction and renovation phases.

'A combination of space needs, funding limitations, and a unique expansion opportunity led college leaders to create an overarching planning framework that eventually outlined 10 manageable construction and renovation phases anticipated to take place over a 15-year period. Each phase included new construction as well as retrofits.'

You can view the article here:
http://www.nacubo.org:80/Business_Officer_Magazine/Business_Officer_Plus/A_Master_Plan_for_Facilities.html

New Book: Historic Preservation: An Introduction to Its History, Principles, and Practice

As part of our community building for SCUP's Getty-funded Campus Heritage Preservation Initiative, we recently met with two of the editors of this book, Ilene and Norm Tyler, which is how we learned of it: "A primer that covers the gamut of preservation issues, from underlying philosophy to rehabilitation economics. Historic Preservation provides a thorough overview of the theory, technique, and procedure for preserving our architectural heritage. The perfect introduction for both architecture students and the interested layperson, it covers preservation philosophy, the history of the movement, the role of government, the designation and documentation of historic structures, establishing a historic district, sensitive architectural design and planning, and the economics of building rehabilitation."

The SCUP Campus Heritage Network

The Society has recently begun work on a $300,000+ grant from the Getty Grant Foundation to analyze and publish lessons learned from the reports back to the Getty from the 85 campuses that, during 2001-2007 received grants for campus heritage planning work. As the initial part of that work, we've launched the Campus Heritage Network, intended to be an online community which will, over time, gather together all those interested in preserving the heritage buildings, landscapes, and sites on our college and university campuses. You can find more information by visiting www.campusheritage.org. If you wish to stay in touch with the project as it develops, please take the time to register with the network and become a member of it. Former SCUP president L. Carole Wharton is the lead researcher and project head. She will attend the 2009 meeting of the Association of University Architects in June, to bring that group up to date on the project, and will also present a related concurrent session at SCUP–44 in Portland.

Ten Reasons Why Colleges and Universities Undertake Campus Master Planning (And How to Align Your Campus Planning Effort to Best Address Them)

This article is from the July–August–September issue of SCUP's journal, Planning for Higher Education. SCUP members can access it at no charge from within the SCUP website. Others can purchase a PDF for immediate download here.

by Michael S. Rudden
Aligning the campus master planning effort to address specific questions of why you are planning in the first place will ensure that your planning effort is successful by the terms that you define.

Citation
Michael S. Rudden. 2008. Ten Reasons Why Colleges and Universities Undertake Campus Master Planning (And How to Align Your Campus Planning Effort to Best Address Them). Planning for Higher Education. 36(4): 33–41.

Constructing the Interdisciplinary Ivory Tower: The Planning of Interdisciplinary Spaces on University Campuses

This article from Planning for Higher Education is blurbed: "An analysis of strategic and campus plans at 21 research institutions reveals lessons learned regarding planning and nurturing interdisciplinary space." SCUP members can access the article online via the SCUP website. Others may purchase an immediately-downloadable PDF version here.

Full Citation: Michael S. Harris and Karri Holley. 2008. Constructing the Interdisciplinary Ivory Tower: The Planning of Interdisciplinary Spaces on University Campuses. Planning for Higher Education. 36(3): 34–43.

Full Abstract: The demand for interdisciplinary teaching and research suggests the need to understand how universities are undertaking and fostering interdisciplinarity. Through an examination of strategic and master plans at 21 research universities, this article explores how institutions plan and foster interdisciplinary engagement through the use of space on campus. The construction of such space acknowledges that the discrete functions of the university, frequently attributed to the disciplines and departments, are not generally conducive to interdisciplinary engagement. Physical space is a necessary component for successful interdisciplinary initiatives both functionally and symbolically.

Princeton’s Campus Plan Comes Into Full Bloom

Princeton University has a new campus plan that dovetails nicely with its recent commitment to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels . . . by 2020. Here's an Architectural Record article about the new campus plan, pointing out that Princeton's initial plan had many conservation features. We also have a link directly to the front page of an extensive website about the plan.

Guest Blogger: Cars—and Parking

An earlier post by SCUPer David McIntyre:

My personal and professional life collided recently. By an admittedly rough estimate, some five million cars have returned to campuses throughout the country in the past few weeks, and a couple of them were mine.

While their student users are in class, cars collectively occupy some 60 square miles of campus space, most of this being land allocated for parking. Back them up end to end (a common occurrence on many campuses these days) and these cars would stretch over halfway around the globe, or from Boston to Berkeley and back again—twice. Arrange them side by side (a common occurrence on the roads leading to campuses) and they would cover metropolitan Washington.

Guest Blogger: Cars, Parking, and Costs

One of the guest bloggers this month on the Chronicle's Buildings & Grounds blog is yet another SCUPer—David McIntyre of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc.

Last week I sat through interviews to select a master-plan consultant for a mid-size university. The university has grown steadily the last 10 years, and is seeking to update its master plan. We are advising the university (and its selection committee) on transportation, infrastructure, and stormwater issues.

Each of the firms was highly qualified and gave a very good presentation. There were common threads: All sought to be sustainable in their approach; all focused on place-making and on spaces for socializing and exchanging ideas; all were visionary and supported the mission of the university. The planning process was to be participatory and inclusive. The presentation materials were seductive. One firm presented sepia-toned plans supported by gauzy watercolor vignettes representing a vision of what the campus could be in the future. Remarkably, the vision was car-free.

When Worlds Collide

A good one, if brief, from Richard Katz:

The emergence of virtual worlds, synthetic worlds, and immersive worlds is a social and technical movement of great importance. Although personally I have yet to be moved to construct a virtual mini-me, I recognize that these environments will become incredibly rich and nuanced—nearly real, in fact. And I realize that the eventual near-reality of these environments has profound implications for higher education.

Colleges and universities are carbon creatures. If we ask donors to endow ideas, they tell us that they’ll endow buildings. We boast about how many assignable square feet of space we are constructing or where we can place the next building designed by the latest famous architect. Institutional leaders write their legacies in bricks and mortar. And our carbon footprint can be magnificent!

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The time is now to build and to experiment and to learn what it may mean to perform campus master planning when the master plan includes virtual spaces. We need to learn what it means to regulate access to institutional resources when those resources reside in virtual spaces. We need to understand the nature and limits of institutional authority inside the virtual classrooms and the virtual social spaces that bear the institution’s name.

Virtual spaces—like the Internet and the web—will change society profoundly. They will change institutions profoundly. The emergence of virtual, synthetic, and immersive worlds is a revolution, and it will likely arrive sooner than we can assimilate it. Like all revolutions, the emergence of virtual worlds will present opportunities for some and threats for others.

Don’t wait for worlds to collide. Plan, experiment, plan, experiment. Now.

Ten Reasons Why Colleges and Universities Undertake Campus Master Planning (And How to Align Your Campus Planning Effort to Best Address Them)

Ten Reasons Why Colleges and Universities Undertake Campus Master Planning (And How to Align Your Campus Planning Effort to Best Address Them)
by Michael S. Rudden

Abstract: Aligning the campus master planning effort to address specific questions of why you are planning in the first place will ensure that your planning effort is successful by the terms that you define.

Common shortcomings were found among the reviewed RFPs. These included over- prescribing the expected planning process instead of the desired planning outcomes, lack of clarity as to the expected level of involvement in campus and community outreach and approval efforts, and an implied need for sophisticated space and facilities assessment tools that the institution may not be committed to maintaining. Too often, insufficient information was provided to determine if special expertise should be included on the planning team, such as a traffic engineer, real estate advisor, academic planner, facilities assessment specialist, or economic development planner. Incomplete descriptions of existing institutional data, studies, and facilities documentation required assumptions that, if misinterpreted, could be expensive to overcome once planning started. However, the most common shortfall was a requested scope of planning that was not aligned with the institution’s likely resources.

Citation: Michael S. Rudden. 2008. Ten Reasons Why Colleges and Universities Undertake Campus Master Planning (And How to Align Your Campus Planning Effort to Best Address Them). Planning for Higher Education. 36(4): 33–41.

Click here for the full text of Ten Reasons Why Colleges and Universities Undertake Campus Master Planning (And How to Align Your Campus Planning Effort to Best Address Them)

Most Trees in UC Berkeley Grove Down, Now

What a difficult time it's been for everyone involved at Berkeley:

Four men sharing a single liter of water, high in a lone redwood, were the last holdout tree sitters in the grove near UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium on Saturday, as contractors hired by the university cut down and began removing dozens of trees nearby.

The university launched the cutting Friday, taking a decisive step after nearly two years of conflict over what the grove protestors say was a Native American burial ground, a war memorial and a vital ecosystem — and where the school plans to build a new athletic facility. . . .

"They're these huge, 100-, 150-year-old trees. You hear them crack and creak and fall over, and it makes you sick, rips apart your stomach," said UC Berkeley student Rene Carranza, 25. "And this is all so people can do sit-ups in air-conditioning."