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Three
Dynamic Factors:
Focus, Finance, Facilities
When
planning a campus, how do you make decisions that will ensure effective
facilities and memorable places? Do you approach the task as
a program coordinator, an economic specialist, or an environmental designer?
The better response demands all three roles. By being clear about your
essential focus, cognizant of financial parameters, and aware of the potentials
of the physical environment, you can make rational decisions about your
buildings and the campus surrounding them.
Focus
In the campus planning context, focus means purpose, basic mission,
and programmatic goals and objectives. Focus can vary from project to
project.
Sometimes
the focus of a planning effort is on academic programs, and means devising
the physically and organizationally appropriate response that will help
the institution better accommodate an existing or changing curriculum,
or start up an entirely new one.
Sometimes
the focus is related to other functional and administrative areas within
the institution, such as campus life, residential, athletic and recreational,
administrative, and facility support programs and activities. In other
cases, a plan will link and balance the needs of several areas and purposes
within the institution.
As
campus planners and facilitators the key task is to help users express
and support their purposes and missions by describing the environments
and facilities that will foster those focal activities.
Meaningful
planning efforts will always return to the users' intended focus to evaluate
and identify the best design alternative or to establish which course
of action among a range of alternatives should have priority.
Finance
Finance is an aspect of planning that may seem apparent. Money
is always an issue. Clearly, not all institutions have a Croesus on the
roster of donors; however, even in cases where there is a generous donor,
prudent and purposeful use of funds may enable the institution to do more
in the long run.
Capital
projects, once completed, immediately begin to deteriorate. It is simply
basic physics at work. Foresightful campus stewards will secure their
physical endowment (facilities) with a monetary endowment that generates
income to fund continued maintenance over time. The typical fund will
provide an annual return ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 percent of the escalated
construction cost of the facility.
At
the inception of a facility-focused project the usual leading question
is: How much money can one realistically expect to invest (or raise to
fund) or see as a return (e.g., generate tuition) on this facility improvement?
Funds may be difficult to raise for certain types of projects.
For
instance, where many assent that one crucial campus asset is parking,
few donors are interested in funding a parking structure to bear their
names. Creative solutions to the challenge may include linking parking
improvements to other mission-driven projects, sharing resources with
other local entities, or investigating a range of financing options.
Limited
funds may also need to be allocated among a number of equally compelling
interests. As an example: is it preferable to fund space improvements
for a department with high enrollments, such as psychology, instead of
physical science departments, for which the school may be particularly
noted? Or, can you find creative ways of sharing space resources to stretch
construction or renovation budgets more effectively? Wisely elected, the
choice is not purely a fiscal one. Physical solutions can shape decisions
as much as fiscal limitations do.
Facilities
Facilities, in our materially oriented culture, are sometimes conceived,
funded, and effected as objects to establish prestige. Where this attitude
may be useful to some purposes, an alternative conception would view buildings
and grounds not as things, but useful spaces (i.e., places).
Campus
facilities collectively are the places where focus (mission, activities,
curricula, etc.) comes back into view. Where the perceived object
(the exterior of a building) establishes campus character and image, it
is the void (space), somewhat ironically, that is the useful part
of the building. Space directly supports institutional functioning. It
matters little, in the fine-grained analysis, whether the sheltering roof
is titanium encrusted or not.
Facilities
needs are not necessarily solved by building more space. Sometimes renovation
and reallocation of space can address mission-driven need and financial
limitations.
Other
times simple exchanges of space can enhance program delivery by drawing
activities that need to be together closer or by giving certain functions
more appropriate allocations of space to support the pedagogic intent.
For instance, small cubicle spaces might be better used for faculty offices
than assigned as art studios for advanced students in thesis preparation,
an activity that might benefit from students sharing larger spaces, resources,
and ideas.
It
is a logical extension to suggest that limitations of space and budget,
as fixed variables in a broader equation, may affect program focus.
Synthesis
Even when a project stems primarily from one of the three key factors,
it will soon become evident that all three are interwoven in the fabric
of decision making. It is difficult to rationally separate the purposive
(focus), from the practical (finance), from the physical (facilities).
We
will continue to delve into aspects and examples of this dynamic in coming
issues.
Charles Craig
Marshall
University Campus Plan
Click
on the image for a larger view and more information about the campus plan.
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DESIGN
GUIDELINES -
Integrating
the Three Factors Campus design guidelines rooted in the
precepts of the institution's mission are an excellent tool to integrate
focus, finances, and facilities.
Too
often, design guidelines are narrowly focused on ensuring that new construction
will blend well with a campus's existing architecture and meet certain
quality standards. While this is an important goal, a more powerful approach
is to incorporate design guidelines as measures that encourage development
consistent with your institution's strategic, academic, operational, and
student life goals
A
Few Examples:
If
your strategy is to provide a "student-centered education," including
in your design guidelines directions to create student gathering areas
— lounges, coffee bars, informal student work areas, email/internet kiosks
(or wireless access points) — within buildings of all types would be a
positive way to advance the goal.
If
your academic plan emphasizes enhancing the institution's academic reputation
through more effective faculty recruitment, your design guidelines could
establish standards for faculty offices that improve this critical component
of the institution's facility inventory.
If
your institutional vision describes an "open, friendly campus accessible
to all," the guidelines should include instructions to create facilities
that meet the letter of the ADA, as well as to eliminate existing barriers
in the project area. Another guideline should support the development
of classrooms that are non-hierarchical and encourage student-to-faculty
and student-to-student discussion.
If
your operational goals outline the need for increased efficiency and lower
costs for building systems and maintenance, the guidelines can help achieve
that by suggesting building performance standards, and durable, easily-maintained
materials and finishes.
Process:
Creating mission-infused guidelines requires an expansive, collaborative
approach that draws on a cross-section of campus leaders familiar with
the institution's "non-physical" planning — faculty, administrators, students,
and planners — so that the guidelines are informed by the institution's
goals and can be drafted to inspire project designers to help advance
those goals.
George Mathey
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