Your ideas sought as U begins 10-year planning process

As the University embarks on early stages of creating a 10-year development plan for the campus, your thoughts are needed.

In this first phase of the process, a group of faculty has created a World Wide Web-based survey to help create a shared vision for the campus community. The survey can be found at: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~campus.

“We have no preconceived notions of what will come out of this survey, other than it will help us develop a plan for the campus that serves us all well,” says Iain Robertson, chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. “We want to use master planning as a tool to develop a collective vision of what we, as a community, think this institution should be like in the future.”

There is no question that the physical appearance of the campus will change, as the demands for space increase, driven by both the research enterprise and the projected increase of 8,000 students over the coming decade.

The survey will inform the master planning process by addressing such questions as, How do people use the campus? How do they perceive the campus? What things do they value about the campus?

“Many of us feel that this is wonderful place to work,” Robertson says. “And we often refer to the 'Mount Rainier factor.' But there's never been an effort to determine what we value and what inspires us.”

The survey specifically should help identify places on the campus that people feel are special, so that development in those areas is limited. “The plan will be a combination of buildings, open space and circulation,” Robertson says. “If we do this well, the work we do now should help us make quicker decisions in the future about campus development.”

Although many faculty participants are in Landscape Architecture, other departments in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning are involved in this process. Moreover, an advisory committee composed of faculty and staff from across campus, as well as representatives from city government, is being created.

“We couldn't have a smarter group to ask than what we find at the University,” says Robertson. “They should have something worthwhile to say about our collective future.

“There's a subconscious message that we receive, in the way we move through the campus. We find it either welcoming or discouraging. We need to be conscious of how the campus affects us, of how it can help create a better community here. My hope is that ideas that we haven't thought about will surface in this process. The possibilities of our environment have not been fully explored.”

Robertson is hopeful that the conversation with the campus community will be an extensive one. The Web site may well be in existence for a year. There also may be summer workshops focusing on different regions of the campus. Robertson also has proposed that some autumn quarter classes in the college continue to work with the consultants who are hired to actually craft the University's master plan. Regardless of the specifics, the early stages of the master planning process are intended to involve as many portions of the campus community as are interested in participating.

“The timing of this master planning exercise is fortuitous,” says Bridgett Chandler, director of community affairs. “There is tremendous dynamism in this part of the city—for example, the RTA is planning two stations in our neighborhood. We care a great deal about siting decisions, good design, and the plans for development surrounding the stations. In addition, the University Community Urban Center Planning Group has been hard at work for several years, with the cooperation of UW staff, to develop a neighborhood plan for the University area. There are many areas of common interest, and the plan outlines a number of areas where the UW could stimulate the kind of changes that the neighborhoods desire. In short, while all the planning can seem overwhelming, we have a terrific opportunity to work together to get it right.”

The process of developing a master plan for the University is expected to take two years. The recent agreement with the city will allow the University to develop a plan that is more flexible and dynamic, without tying the University to tightly constrained descriptions of buildings that might be constructed over the next decade. The master plan will undergo community review through the City University Community Advisory Committee, which will be regularly consulted as the process unfolds. ¶

Bob Roseth, News and Information