VSBA

“…[W]e’ll remain true to our legacy (and our promise) as we grow and adapt in ways that are informed by who and what we are, and value.” — College President Stephen Emerson, February 2008

“The master plan will serve as a living document and decision making tool, providing guidance for the development of the college well into the future. The plan will balance our ambitions for academic and institutional development with our commitment to sustaining the physical beauty of the campus and its buildings. The plan aims to be comprehensive, historically responsive, and environmentally proactive, and to take into consideration what Haverford College has been in the past, where it is today, and where it sees itself going in the next quarter of a century.” — from the Haverford College Master Plan Website

VSBA was invited by Haverford to serve as planner for this “living document.” Key study areas included the performing and visual arts; office, research, and teaching spaces for faculty and students, particularly in the humanities and social sciences; and student activity and social spaces. We related these specific concerns to broader development questions for access, linkage, growth, and conservation, as well as Haverford’s needs for preserving and maintaining its heritage of historic buildings. We also addressed ways to preserve and maintain the beloved landscape; provide greater accessibility; create space for community activities; and provide effective environmental stewardship.

Haverford’s Quaker roots suggested decision-making by consensus, so every member of the campus faculty, student body, and staff was invited to participate in the planning process. We conducted over 400 interviews (individually and in groups) and worked closely with a Steering Committee of faculty, staff, and students to develop the plan. We met with Haverford Township representatives and presented at regular intervals to the Property Committee of the Board of Managers; we discussed the plan at key phases with groups of faculty, alums, and students and at meetings open to the entire campus community.

VSBA’s plan for the 216 acre campus creatively re-animates the historic campus core while shaping connections to new facilities. Maintaining and augmenting the primacy of Founders Green in the hierarchy of outdoor spaces, even as new greens are developed, supports a coherent sense of the College as one place, one community — and focusing density in the core helps preserve the natural areas and open greens that give the campus its distinctive character. VSBA recommended growing within existing space when possible and suggested uses for both existing and new structures.

Our plan studied the spatial implications of recommendations to add faculty over the next several years in order to shift toward increased student-faculty collaborative scholarship. We analyzed the scheduling of classrooms and social spaces to quantify anecdotal information about a perceived shortages of space. In fact, we found that current needs could be met by making better use of existing facilities through minor alterations (such as, for example, refurnishing selected classrooms to better suit current pedagogies) and making scheduling changes. In the course of our work, we also explored options and devised a text fit for a new culture and media center to promote scholarship and teaching in the arts, social sciences, and humanities.

 

Haverford’s campus master plan is available online: http://www.haverford.edu/facilities/campus_master_plan/

“From the day I was selected to serve in this role, people have been asking me to share my vision for the university.  It is not complicated.  I want Villanova to be Villanova….We know what we do well and we must strive to do it better…” — from Father Peter Donohue’s inauguration speech

“I have initiated the development of a campus master plan to evaluate many aspects of our campus and assess current and future needs for space.  The campus master plan will be a roadmap for future construction, renewal, and maintenance.” — from Father Peter Donohue’s message to the University, April 2007

VSBA was invited to work with Villanova to plan this roadmap.  Through our planning, we strove to nurture a beautiful, amenable, and sustainable campus to support the Augustinian ideal of living and studying amongst friends in an atmosphere of hospitality and scholarship — honoring heritage while supporting aspirations for the present and future.   Our campus master planning helped to:

• provide facilities, landscapes, and physical linkages to support Villanova as a residential, co-educational, and multi-cultural institution with a world-wide perspective
• plan for student residential facilities to support Villanovan ideals of community, meet the University’s commitment to housing underclassmen, and house seniors
• plan for academic and cultural facilities — including a performing arts center and library — to support student engagement in curricular and co-curricular activities
• increase opportunities for interdisciplinary activities and scholarship, especially intercollege
• support a safe and amenable pedestrian campus experience, with campus entrances that are distinctive, clear, and welcoming — while meeting needs for access, parking, and service
• knit and integrate disparate and disjointed use and activity patterns, landscapes, circulation routes, and infrastructure to make a varied yet coherent whole.

Components of the plan include:

• a pedestrian-friendly “hamlet of Villanova” — a townscape nicknamed after the home of St. Augustine of Hippo — with performing arts center, ground-floor University retail with student housing above, and structured parking tucked behind.  With improved pedestrian connections across Lancaster Avenue, the “hamlet” will help extend the University image to its properties (now largely surface parking) across the avenue while significantly increasing the proportion of students living on campus.
• a pedestrian-centered, bicycle-friendly campus core, with accessible connections to transit and to campus areas beyond
• a re-imagined and renewed heart of campus, with large shade trees, green lawn, and more lively mix of uses
• a renovated and augmented center of student activity
• reprogramming and renewing key buildings to create more intentional adjacencies and relationships; additions meet space needs while allowing entrances and greater transparency along busy pedestrian routes; sites reserved for future academic development ensure future flexibility.

Over the course of the plan, we developed programs and guidelines for academic and administrative offices; food service facilities at the heart of campus; academic classroom space; student life facilities; and student residences.  At Villanova, the anecdotal shortage of space was well-supported by data.  For example, our analysis of information available from the Registrar illustrated that classroom utilization was well above most accepted standards, barely leaving time for overnight custodial staff to maintain spaces.  This data provided a context for capital budget requests to the Board of Trustees.

We helped the University draft capital budgets for the next 20 years and identified triggers for upgrades and additions to central utilities and other infrastructure.

Villanova is a residential institution — albeit a privately funded one, with a larger population — aiming to improve its arts facilities, improve student housing, and balance deferred maintenance with the construction of needed new facilities.  Our plan quantified these needs, assigned costs to meeting them, and provided a phased set of implementation guidelines.

 

Villanova’s campus master plan is available online:  http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/president/initiatives/masterplan.html

The purpose of this study was to provide options for improving and expanding Memorial Union and Union South so that these buildings can continue to support the evolving mission and activities of the Wisconsin Union.  Memorial Union, located at the intersection of “town and gown” on Lake Mendota, has provided a place for the University community to gather since 1927, and its Italianate portico and lakeside terrace have become emblems of the Union and of the University as a whole.  Union South was built in 1969 to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding campus, and now provides activities and amenities to an under-served area of campus.

Key themes and goals of the Plan were to:

• establish an overall framework and hierarchy for improving the Union’s buildings, relating physical priorities to social and financial policies
• provide spaces and physical linkages encouraging and nurturing a sense of community and interaction
• encourage an intensity of cultural, recreational, and social activities that will continue to attract students and members to Union facilities
• increase the beauty and utility of Memorial Union and Union South
• promulgate an understanding of the Union’s buildings — their physical development, aesthetic dimensions, present conditions, and future options — and their place, historically and today, on campus and in Madison
• consider opportunities for expansion
• consider Memorial Union and Union South in the context of plans for their surroundings
• provide functional, efficient, and pleasant space for Union users and staff, and upgrade technology throughout the building for the benefit of all
• provide space for a balance of revenue and non-revenue-producing activities in a way supporting the Union’s mission and allowing it to thrive.

VSBA helped the University of Michigan create an evolving master plan for its 3,000-acre campus, whose fundamental goal was to identify opportunities to intellectually and physically link campus precincts.

We discovered a critical need for users to cross from the Central Campus to the Medical Center Campus, separated by tricky topography and a busy state highway.  The Palmer Drive “cathole” site — once a lake and later used for parking and campus services — was jamming the line of communication between the two campuses.

Borrowing an idea from transportation planners, we drew an east-west “desire line” between the University’s arts and sciences (which connected with an arts corridor leading into Ann Arbor) and a north-south line between Main Campus’s academic sciences and the Medical Center’s research.  The Arts-Science Axis and Life Sciences Diag intersected at the Palmer Drive site.  Here we proposed the University’s new Life Sciences complex, which, by linking different campuses and arts with sciences, serves as both a meeting of minds and a meeting place of minds.

The Life Sciences Institute (LSI) houses research labs, Palmer Commons offers student services and amenities, and the Undergraduate Science Building (USB) has labs, classrooms, and offices.  The 854,700 gsf, $188,000,000 complex is linked and united by an elevated, interwoven cluster of pathways and gathering places situated atop a five-level parking garage; at its lowest level, the garage incorporates a 1,000,000 gallon detention basin to manage storm water for the site and surrounding precinct.

Sustainability and contextuality are critical themes throughout our designs.  In LSI and USB, natural sunlight is important to lab quality, so we located most workstations within 10 feet of large windows.  Labs on the upper floors take advantage of external views, while public entries and lobbies are located on the plaza walkway level.  The buildings’ exteriors respect the Main Campus’s early 20th century loft styles.  Their material palettes consist largely of stone, including brownstone, sandstone, limestone, and granite.  Outward-facing facades complement the red brick found on the campus’s masonry buildings, while brighter, light-reflecting colors line the buildings’ inner facades.  Black and white glazed terra cotta tiles evoke the carved details of UM’s traditional buildings, while Palmer Commons’ large expanse of aluminum-framed curtainwall facing Palmer field and the dormitories visually reinforces the communal, public nature of the facility.

In counterpoint to Palmer Drive’s spacious and generic buildings, the cluster of pedestrian walkways — public, informal, and as complex as the streets of a medieval town — provides space indoors and out for people to gather, relax, and study.  As a “meeting place of minds,” these paths and the complex as a whole encourage students, researchers, and faculty members from different disciplines to gather casually, a place where “accidental” meetings can lead to exciting discussions and serendipitous discoveries.  After all, Nobel Prizes can arise from chats over coffee counters as well as at lab benches.

The Life Sciences Institute (designed in collaboration with SmithGroup) houses multi-disciplinary research lab space.  Its design derives from regular, repetitive lab modules; a generic structure also accommodates flexibility over time as technology and research change.  Interior “streets” run from labs and offices to stairs and elevators, passing near informal interaction spaces where people can gather, relax, change their focal length, and discuss ideas around a whiteboard.

The multi-purpose Undergraduate Science Building contains laboratories, teaching facilities, faculty offices, and a lobby coffee shop.  Interior “streets” (with cozy eddies and nooks for meeting and studying) tie the building’s circulation to the Art-Science Axis and the complex’s inner court.

Palmer Commons is a place to be shared by students, researchers, people from the performing arts, and others going between the Main and Medical Campuses.  It can offer gathering and conference spaces, a deli and café on the walkway level, and a convenience store by the entrance.

In a 1997 message to the University of Michigan community, President Lee Bollinger described a reassessment of the University’s physical campus, undertaken as it evolved at an unprecedented rate:

“In 1837…not even the most visionary civic and academic leaders could have imagined the reach of the campus we now occupy.  Today, our Ann Arbor Campus comprises five or six discrete campuses, each with its own geographic center and its own master plan.… The last ten years have witnessed an unprecedented period of construction on each of these campuses.  We are, however, at risk of centrifugal sprawl, of diluting our essential coherence and sense of community…. We need to conceive of our Campus as a whole and consider its place in the larger Ann Arbor community.  We need to take a long view, to consider what our University Campus might be like, what its character should be, one hundred years from now.”

VSBA was selected to be the planners for this conception of the whole.  In Phase 1, a “once-round-lightly,” we laid the groundwork for future stages of the planning process.  The plan’s key themes and most general goals are to:

• define a physical setting for the life of the mind of this great University and for those who use and support it
• establish an overall framework for development, relating physical plans to academic and financial policies
• promulgate an understanding of the physical campus, its historical development, present patterns and conditions, future options, and place in the growth of Ann Arbor
• provide facilities for education and research, nourish the arts on campus and in Ann Arbor, encourage an intensity of cultural, recreational, and social activities, and define a spectrum of on- and off-campus residential opportunities
• increase physical opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration University-wide, especially in relation to growth in the sciences
• define and develop the role of each University campus
• balance densification and outward expansion
• understand the University as a diverse, multicultural community and help define a physical “home” for each faculty, student, and staff member.

Phase 2 involved the deeper exploration of issues and preliminary options outlined in Phase 1 as well as the closer investigation of various campus subareas and subsystems.

A master plan for the Health System’s Medical Center Campus encompasses the Medical School, research labs, inpatient and outpatient clinical care components, and amenities for patients, visitors, faculty, doctors, and staff.  It includes the evaluation of sites on the Medical Center Campus for expanding clinical facilities, as well as the development of a master plan for satellite Health System sites that may provide ambulatory and primary care services.  (Out of our master planning, over 2,105,000 square feet of building space is being constructed.)  The East Ann Arbor medical satellite study concerns the site qualities and its capacity to support a variety of Health System programs.

In addition, VSBA directed broad studies conducted by University transportation consultants, and supervised environmental framework analyses and landscape documentation conducted within the master planning process to support the University’s goal of environmental stewardship.

Central Campus Programming and Site Capacity studies analyzed and developed options for an array of academic and administrative program needs for the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.  Our studies investigated options for new and adapted teaching and support facilities; social and academic interaction patterns for students and faculty; and patterns of pedestrian circulation, open space use, building access, and symbolic and visual character.  Further site capacity and precinct studies encompassed facilities for academic and research; theater, music, and arts; student housing; and athletics.

Our Law School Architectural Programming Study developed requirements and options for renewal and expansion of the historic Law School Quadrangle.  It focused on expanding academic programs and administrative services, improving opportunities for student/faculty interaction, enhancing Library collections storage and services, and improving building systems and technology access.

The major first increment of building resulting from our planning is the Palmer Drive Complex.  Planning helped locate and design this first Institute of the University’s newly-formed Life Sciences Initiative and related facilities.  The $188,000,000, 854,700 gsf complex (for which VSBA and Smith Group Inc. were architects) includes the Life Sciences Institute, Palmer Commons, Undergraduate Science Building, and five-level parking garage.  It connects the Central and Medical Center campuses, separated by topography and a busy thoroughfare, and helps to define an arts-sciences axis from a series of arts venues on- and off-campus.

VSBA was retained to design a new hotel at the edge of a bustling entertainment and commercial neighborhood in Seoul, Korea. The mixed-use project places the hotel lobby and amenities above two levels of retail space and below-grade parking.

We worked with a local associated architect and client representatives to devise several options, from which two main schemes were selected for greater development.  In both, our overarching goals include:

• sensitively responding to the site’s different contexts, scales, and activities — and enhancing the retail environment within the district
• providing an inviting arrival sequence for guests, from motor lobby to reception desk to individual rooms
• creating facades that are lively and friendly — and using animated LED graphic elements at a range of scales to engage pedestrians and the whole city
• developing efficient plans for room floors while maximizing the number of guest rooms with desirable views
• using site development incentives to maximize floor area ratio while animating pedestrian levels
• creating a public plaza in front of the hotel to engage pedestrians and offer a sense of arrival for guests
• organizing circulation patterns to create valuable interactions between hotel activities and retail activities
• creating a pedestrian gateway and passage from the main road to the entertainment district
• maintaining secure separation between parking, lobby, retail, restaurant, and other public or semi-public spaces and the room floors.

In parallel with the design of a new Biomedical / Biological Science Research Building (BBSRB) at the University of Kentucky, VSBA was asked to study possible sites for the building to make maximum use of the Limestone-Virginia precinct.  It must serve its users well and meet the aspirations of the University while maintaining flexibility in light of evolving programmatic developments, trends in academic and research curricula, shifts in funding, and changes in the healthcare and academic environments.  The architecture and planning of the new sector must express and convey the nature and importance of its activities on campus.

To incept planning for both the new precinct and first increment buildings, VSBA’s plan considers the University’s patterns and systems at many scales.  It examines the Medical Center and Lexington Campuses in relation and in context, local and regional.  We considered the capacity of the Limestone-Virginia precinct itself; studied how relationships and activities around it may cross through or potentially impinge upon it; and attempted to define the possible impact of these conditions and connections on the planning and development of the site.  We have derived the footprints of lab buildings from established laboratory typologies and their layouts.

Storm King Art Center is a unique outdoor museum — an expansive series of lawns, trails, fields, groves, and woodlands framed by the Hudson Highlands and set with monumental modern sculptures by notable artists.  Each artwork’s context is defined by both immediate and distant landscapes; the ever-changing visitor experience encompasses the seasons and weather, as well as the growing collection.  The Center is a public, non-profit, and educational institution.

In the late 2000s, VSBA was retained to help develop a comprehensive picture of the institution’s facilities and plans for future growth.  We studied the interrelation of art, landscape, architecture, circulation, education, outreach, parking, and other systems as they relate to the visitor experience.  Linkages were fundamental concerns.   Our planning mapped existing and problem connections between activities and uses both on the site and with the broader neighborhood.  Our study also encompassed important issues of environmental stewardship and operational and finance concerns.

In 2013 we were then asked to begin a second phase of planning.  Since the initial study, Storm King has increased its acreage of native grasses, acquired new properties, added a new cafe, rerouted its tram service, and expanded its bike rental program.  Our goals are to continue improving visitor experience, promoting identity, creating flexible areas for programs and activities, providing good working environments, and fostering the right conditions for its unique art.

In addition to our planning, we’ve designed a new visitor map and brochure as a guide to the grounds’ sculptures, facilities, and natural features.  The map reflects conceptual reorganization of Storm King’s precincts, in accord with our planning.

VSBA designed a major expansion for the Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Cedar Crest Campus and oversaw construction of the final phase of its facility master plan projects.  The Kasych Pavilion, centerpiece of the campus, includes:

• a 182-bed (all private) patient care tower
• 6 new operating rooms
• 3 30-bed medical / surgical units
• 2 intensive care units with 44 beds total
• cardiac unit
• 30-bed open-heart unit in-patient tower
• 18-bed regional burn center
• expanded emergency department from 23 to 48 treatment bays, accommodating over 70,000 annual visits
• conference and administrative space for education, health, and wellness classes
• surface and deck parking for patients, visitors, staff, and physicians.

The Pavilion’s design derives from the context of existing hospital buildings and their precast concrete and aluminum curtain wall aesthetic.  The new building defers to the existing central entrance but creates facades that are predominantly windows into patient rooms and colorful aluminum panels.  At ground level, large expanses of windows encourage transparency and connections between the interior concourse and the exterior “Avenue of the Arts.”  The modularity of the building’s function inspires the rhythmic patterns of vertical and horizontal materials and details.

The interior concourse connects the new building to the existing pedestrian circulation system, bringing it to the front to allow natural light and exterior views.  This space is designed to be a place for patients, visitors, conference attendees, and staff, so it must accommodate their varied needs.  A convenience store, located near the staff entrance, provides a needed amenity for nurses and physicians on their way to and from work.  The concourse is furnished with durable terrazzo floors, laminate wall panels, and natural cherry wood doors, benches, and display cases.  Graphics and fine art adorns the concourse, including quotes from inspirational thinkers and bronze casts of medical educators.  Graphic panels and a comprehensive signage program throughout the building describe the sustainable initiatives used to achieve LEED certification.

The Kasych Pavilion is an environmentally friendly building.  One of the fundamental principles of healing and healthcare is first do no harm, and in our design we’ve minimized impact on the global environment while taking many measures to make sure this building is healthy and safe.  Specific strategies include:

• carefully controlling indoor chemical and pollutant sources, with entries designed to capture dirt and particulates
• implementing an exhaust ventilation heat recovery system
• using low-emitting materials which minimize exposure to things like volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde
• providing generous natural daylight and external views in all occupied areas to benefit patients, visitors, physicians, and staff
• using regional materials and resources
• diverting nearly 90% of construction waste from going to landfills.

As a component of our work at Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Cedar Crest campus, VSBA planned, designed, and oversaw construction for the Center for Advanced Health Care, a LEED Silver certified anchor for ambulatory care whose mission is to create a personal, patient-centered and life-affirming experience for the patient.  Physicians’ offices, clinical spaces, and other tenants are located here.  VSBA was Design Architect for the site planning, massing, exterior skin, and public spaces of the building, as well as two floors of clinical facilities within the building, the Neuroscience Center, and the Lehigh Valley Heart Specialists Diagnostic Center.  The floor also contains a public corridor connecting the enclosed pedestrian bridge to the building, and a café serving light food and drinks for building occupants, patients, and families.

The agreement between the governing boards of Harvard and Radcliffe that created the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study also established its mission:  “The purpose of the Radcliffe Institute will be to create an academic community where individuals can pursue advanced work in the academic disciplines, professions, or creative arts.  Within this broad purpose, and in recognition of Radcliffe’s historic contributions to the education of women and to the study of issues related to women, the Radcliffe Institute will sustain a continuing commitment to the study of women, gender and society.”

For the past 124 years, Radcliffe has paralleled and anticipated the role of women in higher education in this country;  as the status of higher education for women has evolved so, too, has the nature of Radcliffe and its physical campus bears witness to this shared history.  This study suggests how the beautiful buildings and landscapes of Radcliffe can house new and evolving patterns of activities while providing an essential continuity between Radcliffe’s past, present and future.  The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Ad Hoc Committee recommended that the Institute “move toward integration as a single entity, in intellectual, programmatic and organizational terms.”   From this study and the Institute’s responses emerged a planning framework for achieving the physical aspects of this integration — while nevertheless tying the new identity of the Radcliffe Institute to the historic heritage of the buildings of Radcliffe College.  Key elements of the plan include: institute activities — particularly academic and public functions — clustered at its heart in Radcliffe Yard;  shared and public activities of Institute-wide significance in a network of spaces in Radcliffe’s most historic and iconic buildings — Agassiz House, Schlesinger Library, and Radcliffe Gym;  space for Fellows in collegial, “workaday” buildings on the Yard;  connections between these across the beautiful landscape of Radcliffe Yard, preserved and augmented by the activity of the Institute;  options for phasing, largely dependent on the availability of space, to locate the Fellows in the Yard at the earliest possible date.

VSBA’s renovation of the Institute’s Schlesinger Library was the first increment of the campus plan; the renovation of the historic Fay House, currently under construction, is the latest (and last of the major projects recommended by the plan).  Ms. Trainer is principal-in-charge for both renovation projects.

Bryn Mawr’s campus core was shaped by Calvert Vaux, Frederick Law Olmsted, Ralph Adams Cram, Cope and Stewardson, Louis Kahn, and others. The orthogonal pattern of the early Collegiate Gothic campus is set in beautiful contrast to the undulating topography of the Romantic valley landscape to its west. Outside its planned core, the College has grown incrementally by annexing former private residences across peripheral streets. With this expansion of boundaries and changing of institutional needs over time, the patterns of use, circulation, and entrance on campus have shifted out of line with each other.

VSBA’s update to the firm’s original concept plan for Bryn Mawr College (which VSBA completed in the late 1990s) considered ways of adding to a campus with a distinct and beloved architectural and landscape character. It provided a framework for making decisions on accommodating expansion and setting priorities among projects, while addressing a number of specific needs identified by the College, including:

• improved facilities for the sciences.
• updated facilities for athletics and well-being
• ways of improving student and residential life, including new residence halls, as well as spaces for community activities and hanging out
• the potential impact of moving the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research to the campus core.

These concerns were related to broader development questions of access, linkage, growth, and conservation, as well as to needs the College has campus-wide for:

• a more sustainable approach to development
• greater accessibility and more coherent pedestrian circulation patterns
• modest, incremental short-term improvements based on the framework and understanding of the College’s long-term principles, priorities and options

Working with the College, we set up series of thematically-arranged individual and group interviews and work sessions, cutting across various segments of the College — faculty, staff, and students. We evolved general principles for campus development then suggested options for subareas of the campus where specific concerns needed to be addressed. These options were then combined into alternatives for the campus as a whole. Recommendations for meeting present needs were related to long-range options; possible first increments of development were suggested along with ways to make these compatible in spirit and scale with the delicate, loosely-woven landscape of the campus “outside the walls.”

VSBA worked with Brown University to strengthen the quality of student life on campus in order to help make students’ academic and educational experience better and their time at Brown more memorable.

The University encourages involvement in a medley of activities outside classes because “the educational experience extends to all aspects of students’ lives and…. the academic mission and program of the University have an important complement in the broad educational framework that students find outside the classroom.” Therefore “the range of activities on-and off-campus, the resources and the spaces, are all understood as a rich and complex educational whole.”

Evolving models of learning and teaching underscore the value of social spaces in helping to broaden university education. Cybercafés in libraries, study halls in student centers, coffee lounges in labs — these encourage interdisciplinary interactions and extend the scope of education beyond the classroom.

VSBA’s broad study encompassed a range of social and community facilities for dining, fitness, study, meeting, gathering, and performing. Our task was to help Brown identify community needs; recommend what, if any, type of campus center or organization and scales of programs would be good for the University; and determine what type of campus center or precinct makes sense for Brown. We also analyzed ways the University can enhance its campus facilities to tie them into educational, administrative, and financial plans and policies.

During the study it became clear that several basic questions would need to be answered before the University could make decisions on the type of student and campus life facilities it should promote:

• What aspects of campus life need further support and enhancement at Brown? Would a campus center be a vehicle for this enhancement?
• Should new campus life facilities — such as fitness and dining — be located in association with “sub-nuclei” such as residence halls or be organized as part of a centralized facility on campus?
• What site options should be considered? How do different sites address campus life needs? What campus center activities and configurations does each site support?
• What would be the right size and location for a new campus center?

Our planning and analyses revealed a current lack of a large, centralized facility offering co-curricular activities and services, such as spaces for student activities, dining, and studying.  We also completed a feasibility, programming, and conceptual design study for a campus center incorporating the existing four-building Metcalf complex. This historic complex could become a unique, and uniquely Brown, campus center.

VSBA was retained to provide program validation and schematic design for a new 5-story, 400-500 bed freshman residence hall at the University of Alabama A major goal was to promote social integration among first year students living on campus.

We began by reviewing UA’s preliminary building arrangement concepts. We validated residential unit plans by testing issues such as HVAC system functionality, furniture quantity and size, and student movement and flexibility. We designed several options for typical residential units and worked with an estimator to develop benchmark cost estimates. Then we completed schematic design for the project.

As we designed, we thought of bedrooms like houses along corridor streets, each wing like a neighborhood. To encourage students to socialize outside their rooms, we fashioned communal spaces such as open lounges, flexible study areas, shared washrooms, and a game / media room. The building will also feature three major public spaces: a multipurpose room, a convenience retail store, and a storm shelter with recreation amenities, each of which can be accessed securely and independently of the residential units. A kitchen and community lounge on the first floor serves as town square.

The building’s site is near UA’s residential and student life precinct, in close proximity to dining and student center facilities. We helped create and strengthen pedestrian connections to student life amenities, especially through the incorporation of a new covered plaza and outdoor meeting area. As the university plans a nearby outdoor amphitheater, the residence hall was designed with community functions located directly adjacent and accessible at the ground level.

VSBA’s design also responds sensitively to UA’s Classic Revival architectural character, utilizing campus standard brick and other traditional campus materials.

Wellesley College’s leadership undertook a series of planning initiatives to assess different academic and student life systems.  Working groups were charged with envisioning the future of programs in the arts and media, the humanities, science and the environment, the student residential experience, and wellness and sports.

Wellesley asked VSBA to synthesize the results from these studies, considering each analysis individually and in relation to the College as a whole.  Our consolidated programming process helped to:

• identify and address areas of overlap, and gaps, between each of the program plans
• articulate goals for sustainability, accessibility, and preservation
• align the College’s goals with projected budgets.

The study helped guide decision-making by clarifying intentions and identifying choices and trade-offs throughout the process.  In the end, VSBA’s consolidated program planning helped to create an integrated, flexible framework to guide campus development for the next twelve to fifteen years.