Successful Master Planning

Involving the users
Plans that are developed by a few administrators and their architect and then handed down from the mountain top have little chance of long-range success. I have found that asking user groups within each administrative unit and academic department to work with the architect-master planner on the details of their operation can make a huge difference in the successful use of the master plan. The second cause of master plan neglect is lack of user involvement in its design.

By having biologists and chemists help with the design of the program for a new life sciences building, or asking the athletic coaches to define the requirements for improved tennis facilities, or seeking the help of student focus groups to design a projected new student center or residence hall, many people on campus can come to feel an ownership in the master plan. Intensive interaction between planners and users, including student and faculty forums and “town meetings,” can do much to create interest, excitement, and a willingness to work harder to implement the plan.

User involvement runs the risk that some departments’ dreams may exceed the means to accomplish them. So an administrative faculty “oversight committee” should be formed to review the aspirations and specific physical wants of each unit and department. This committee can act as a reality check on the expressed needs of each user group.

Phase 1 of Palm Beach Atlantic College

The homework and user-involvement activities usually take about six months and may seem to some a very time-consuming and unnecessary delay in the actual physical plans, but I think it is an absolutely necessary process for successful university master planning. The master plan can shape the life of the college or university for the next century or more, so it is essential to get the best input from the most expert and intimate users of each portion of the institution’s facilities. Also, the users must participate to keep the master plan – no matter how brilliant – from gathering dust in a file drawer.

Choosing the master planner
The third factor in achieving a successful master plan is hiring a planner who understands how colleges and universities work and appreciates the special and unusual “academical village” a college or university campus is.

She or he should be an architect who has a scholarly knowledge of the university planning and architectural tradition. The architect should be aware of the symbolic importance of older buildings and find out which buildings are “sacred” because of aesthetic distinction or social values. Colleges like Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and Centre in Kentucky have spent large sums f money to restore and modernize their “Old Main” to keep history alive.

The architect-planner should be contextual. That is, he or she should strive to create a cohesive campus, not a collection of individual, unconnected buildings. Too many campuses have been pockmarked by exhibitionistic pieces of architecture that have little relation to the materials, scale, fenestration, academic nature, or architectural heritage of the institution.

My own firm has designed a new campus in Florida (see Figure 1) that suggests the distinctive southern Florida style of architect Addison Mizner – to fit into the best of the regional architecture. We have also grown ivy on the walls of hideous but historic buildings and planted trees to screen important but unattractive buildings so that they can continue to function unobtrusively in the master plan.

The architect-planner should also be willing to invest a significant amount of time on campus learning the peculiar needs of a college or university. No other country has the variety and diversity of higher educational institutions that the United States has. That condition needs to be honored, not pressed into homogeneity.

If a college wishes to have a successful master plan, then I suggest it is wise to remember the three factors I have identified. Prepare for the arrival of the master planner by doing homework on the strategic issues that the institution should address for its future. Involve the users of the master plan facilities in their design, location and style. And select an architect-planner who understands the special needs of comprehensive college or university long-range physical planning.

If these three steps are followed, the resulting plan and its architecture can not only provide an attractive and well-arranged physical environment for scholars and their students but also enhance the learning that goes on at an institution.

This article originally appeared in Planning for Higher Education, Volume 18, Summer 1991.

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END NOTES

1. Earl Flansburgh, “New-Wave Student Housing,” Planning for Higher Education, 19:3 (Spring 1991), 1-10.
2. Paul Venable Turner, Campus: An American Planning Tradition (MIT Press, 1984).

Figure 1. In master planning the new architecture should be contextual. Note how the new buildings here echo the regional style developed by Addison Mizner.