CAMPUS VISION
The Campus Master Plan describes the direction of campus growth and provides locations for development as opportunity may arise for the physical campus to play its intended role in serving the mission of the University.
This 2017 Campus Master Plan supports the University’s developmental goals captured in the 2016 UA Strategic Plan, Advancing the Flagship. It carries forward the fundamental campus principles adopted by the Board of Trustees to enable desired growth of undergraduate and graduate programs, and to create an increasingly more beautiful, inclusive and user-friendly campus.
Participation in the Process
Essential to the planning process was broad participation by members of the greater University community. Multiple interviews and brainstorming sessions were conducted with University administration, faculty, staff, students and alumni. There were work sessions with the University’s space planning consultant, facilities and housing staffs, the Campus Master Planning Committee, the SGA, and other stakeholder groups, and open review meetings with faculty, staff and students—people who know the campus and its opportunities for creative improvement.
The planning process was likewise informed by the many working meetings and listening sessions held in early 2016 as part of the University’s strategic planning process, and by the Strategic Plan itself.
Strategic Concept – the Big Idea
This Campus Master Plan supports the University’s educational mission and the goals outlined in the 2016 Strategic Plan by providing a campus setting that stimulates learning and innovation. It is built around five concepts for physical development.
The Big Idea: 2017
Provide an inspiring campus environment to support the goals of the 2016 Strategic Plan: Advancing the Flagship.
- Provide academic space that stimulates teaching, research, creative activity and service
- Enhance campus open space as a unifying environment for all facilities
- Invest in campus safety, security and sense of well-being
- Optimize multimodal campus accessibility
- Create safe and inviting interactive gathering and study spaces
Goals
Aspirations for campus investment in support of the 2016 Strategic Plan:
Unify and conserve the campus with engaging open spaces and pathways, landmarks and overall sense of place.
Adapt buildings and facilities to stimulate creation, innovation and expansion of knowledge, mindful of context, accessibility and relationships.
Enliven the campus with robust opportunities for academic and social engagement—indoors and in outdoor spaces—as well as passive and active recreation.
Organize buildings in traditional patterns around shared, usable open spaces and featuring endearing architecture.
Integrate new construction with incremental infill through design that embraces the campus-wide open space system and that is appropriate to the specific site and its immediate surroundings.
Invest in quality campus experiences through execution of an overall development strategy and coordinated implementation system.
Grow Research and Academic Space
- Support planned growth in undergraduate, graduate and research programs with academic and research space
- Retain key academic programs in the core of campus, relatively close to one another
- Reorganize and defragment the core and retain essential support functions
- Remove non-essential functions
- Increase overall academic density
- Relocate programs having lesser student interaction outside the core
- Add interdisciplinary, interactive, collaborative spaces
Enhance Open Space
- Nurture and enhance the overall open space system as the primary organizing feature of the campus
- Use formal spaces to provide direct relationships among adjoining buildings, using strong geometries and providing opportunities for gathering, recreation and circulation
- Enhance streets, pedestrian and multi-use paths and trails as linear open spaces to interconnect campus buildings and open spaces
- Conserve natural open spaces and environmental features and functions to provide opportunities to interact with nature
Optimize Accessibility
- Use multiple modes of travel to provide access to and around the campus
- Provide a safe, convenient, and attractive environment to support walking, cycling and transit
- Continuously update Crimson Ride to help lessen auto traffic and parking demand
- Assure safe, convenient pedestrian access between the academic core, parking and transit, housing, recreation and off-campus
- Provide safe bicycle access on campus and to and from off-campus destinations
- Manage traffic to assure the safety of those walking and bicycling and to maintain the image and enjoyment of the campus
Creative Interactive Spaces
- Provide opportunities for students to interact—socially and intellectually, formally and informally—to support holistic student development
- Expand the number and type of indoor facilities to support student development through interaction
- Support academic and social development through exposure to new and different ideas, experiences and cultures
- Plan, design and build campus facilities and open spaces to support interaction and engagement among students of different fields of study, class levels, backgrounds, cultures and religions
Enhance Campus Safety
- Manage on-campus vehicular traffic to assure the safety of those walking and bicycling
- Manage pedestrian crossing of selected streets and heavy traffic intersections
- Enhance pedestrian security along University Boulevard at the Quad and Stadium
- Build out the storm shelter master plan
- Improve safety of railroad crossings