This draft is a revised first draft and is intended for introduction and review purposes only. Although a general outline and the graphic content of this document have already been presented to the Andrews University Campus Planning Committee, the draft has yet to be reviewed in detail. The authors of this document anticipate that appropriate details will be changed subsequent to a more thorough review.

You are invited to peruse this document carefully and offer comments and critique at your discretion. A draft of the Campus Master Plan, its goals and illustrations will also be presented to the faculty and staff at a later date, which has yet to be determined. A summary of the decision-making process behind this project can be found on the blog of this website.

The Campus Design Studio has been relatively silent since late October, but work has been progressing steadily. On November 14, 2012 the team presented a draft document to the Andrews University Campus Master Planning Committee for review and feedback. This draft is available for download here and includes a proposed set of master planning principles, goals, regulating plans, and a series of case studies for specific building, landscape, and infrastructure projects. Much of the committee discussion focused on the health and wellness center location, for which four different sites were studied and compared.

Subsequent to this review, the team spent the rest of November preparing the final content for the Campus Master Plan document, including visionary photo-realistic illustrations, maps, and diagrams. An incomplete draft of this work was reviewed and critiqued by the architecture faculty on December 7, 2012 as part of an internal review. The following concerns/questions that were raised:

1. Is the university planning for more new buildings and parking lots than it can afford to operate?
2. Should there be several long-term strategies for connecting to the Saint Joseph river valley, including options that do not remove all buildings on the east bluff?
3. Is the proposed Master Plan flexible enough to accommodate all of the Health & Wellness Center sites, regardless of which one is ultimately chosen?
4. How and when will this work be completed?

Given the broad scope of the work, the team struggled to complete the work before the end of fall semester. Under the leadership of Troy Homenchuk, twelve of the original twenty graduate students will complete the necessary illustrations while Andrew von Maur and Paula Dronen lead a group of five graduate students to wrap up the proposed set of maps and Campus Design Guidelines. We estimate that the work will be completed by the end of January 2013. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and for supporting this process.

On Tuesday, October 23, seven Andrews University architecture alumni traveled to campus for a multi-day review and workshop designed to help the team focus its efforts and refine its work. The alumni, which are all practicing Seventh-day Adventist professionals in the field of architecture, preservation, sustainability design, and planning, had the chance of briefly meeting with President Andreasen and Vice President for University Advancement David Faehner as part of their Wednesday campus walking tour before reviewing the extensive work completed by the Campus Design Studio to this date.

The photo above shows the alumni team, left to right, Russ Tyson, Paula Dronen, David Steele, Christopher Hoyt, Jesse Hibler, Chad Kirstein, Brandt Hay, Andrew von Maur, and Caleb Johnson. More information on these alumni can be found here. The alumni team also had the privilege of meeting with Provost Andrea Luxton on Thursday to discuss the significance of guidelines, the strategic purpose of the campus master plan, and some questions regarding implementation. Following an intensive workshop with the graduate student team, the alumni helped to craft a draft outline of strategic goals and necessary design guidelines. It also worked to summarize a focused set of recommendations for the final regulating plan, which will provide guidance on the location of future facilities and the preservation of open space. This work will be refined over the course of this coming week and is expected to be presented on November 7 at Chan Shun Hall, 4-6pm.

DeWayne Carver, of Tallahassee-based Hall Planning & Engineering, worked with the team to project future traffic impacts, study possible parking solution, and to explore alternative truck-service scenarios for different parts of campus. Chicago-based landscape architect and stormwater management specialist Marcus de la Fleur worked with the team to evaluate existing stormwater runoff and environmental deterioration, and to generate conceptual native species stormwater management solutions that can help to protect the campus watershed and improve local site drainage in select locations. Architects Scott Merrill and David Colgan of Florida-based Merrill, Pastor & Colgan Architects worked with the team to study the site capacity of various parts of campus, in particular for a future Health & Wellness Center, a School of Health Professions, a Science Complex Addition, and alternative Residence Hall scenarios, among others. Faculty and students of the Department of Agriculture in the area of landscape design also assisted the team in developing concept proposals for Beaver Point, the Saint Joseph River Valley ravine, and the parking lot east of the bookstore. Visiting participants were given a chance to comment on the presented work in small group breakout sessions. A summary of the results and discussion notes are available here. This photo shows discussion moderator Ryan Agrey working with undergraduate students during a breakout session.

Also, on September 9, Assistant Professor and AU Senator Troy Homenchuk had the pleasure of sharing a progress report of the Campus Design Studio with the General Staff and the AU Senate.  The response from the staff and senate was animated and positive. At the general staff meeting held in Chan Shun hall, approximately fifty staff had an opportunity to learn about the goals and process of the Campus Planning studio. All were encouraged to attend the next workshop at 4pm on Thursday, October 4 in the Lincoln/Hoosier/Badger Rooms of the Campus Center. Following a brief tour of the project website, some of the results of the September 9 workshop were projected on the screen. Staff and senators were particularly enthusiastic to see what places on campus were most loved and needed the most love. The results of the Visual Preference Survey also got everybody’s attention. All results of the workshop can be downloaded here.

Meanwhile, the design team has begun its conceptual design phase in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and professional sub-consultants. Transportation planner DeWayne Carver of Hall Planning & Engineering arrived on Tuesday and is working with the team to study future transportation and parking solutions. Also, landscape architect and stormwater management expert Marcus de la fleur arrived on Wednesday to begin studying the future impact of development on the natural lands surrounding the central campus. Agriculture instructor Garth Woodruff and a select group of landscape students met with the team yesterday to review preliminary concepts and propose future agricultural facilities. Finally, professors Andrew von Maur and Paula Dronen met with VP for Student Life Frances Faehner and the Resident Hall deans to discuss long-term student housing alternatives and the philosophy of residence life on campus. All results of the concept design phase will be presented at the October 4 campus-wide workshop.

The design team has almost completed its travels in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia to study various existing campuses in preparation for the design phase of the master planning process. So far, this has included the College of William & Mary, Richmond University, the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, the Maryland Institute College of Art, Goucher College, St John’s College, the US Naval Academy, and St Mary’s College of Maryland. Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia has been of particular interest to the team because E. A. Sutherland praised its design as a model to be considered for Christian education. Sutherland, an early pioneer of Seventh-day Adventist education and first president of the campus that is now Andrews University, advocated the use of smaller, simple buildings to avoid debt, enable phased financing, improve access to natural light and fresh air, and to promote a student culture of self-government and independent thinking. Jefferson’s UVA campus still demonstrates most of these characteristics, although its agricultural emphasis praised by Sutherland has unfortunately been lost. The photograph shows graduate student Jason Blanzy measuring Jefferson’s colonnade shared by the student and professor lodgings, classrooms, and the library.

The team also visited Hartman-Cox Architects in Washington, DC to discuss campus building trends with partners T. Lee Becker and Mary K. Lanzillotta, and with staff designers and AU graduates Jason Barrett and Michael Figueroa. This included an extended discussion about design solutions, programming for campus buildings, architect selection processes, and implementation.

On September 16, the team also traveled to Bethesda, Maryland to meet with sixteen AU architecture alumni over dinner to discuss the possible future of the Andrews University campus. Graduate students took notes on planning and design recommendations and some alumni gave on-camera interviews that will be available later this semester. The students were also sure to receive some advice on future professional challenges and career opportunities. The alumni practitioners in architecture and planning, all based in the DC-area, included Jason Barrett, Maxwell Blakeney, Isaac Bonilla, Michael Figueroa, Sean Kilby, Julie Peter, Lindsey Ringwelski, Judith Romero, Leonardo Sarli, Rhiannon (Porter) Schroth, Isaac Smith, Michael Weich, Ruthzaly (Perez) Weich, Andwele Worrell, LaJoya (Vanderhorst) Worrell, and Timothy Zork. Summary notes of their comments will be available soon.

The Campus Design Studio conducted the first campus planning workshop on Sunday, September 9 at the Hoosier and Lincoln Rooms of the Campus Center. More than seventy-five students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community residents attended the two-hour workshop, which was opened with some motivating remarks by President Andreasen. The event began with an open-house presentation of more than forty large-scale maps, diagrams, and outlines illustrating existing campus assets, challenges, and known plans. This study of the existing campus, which visually summarizes the first two weeks of evaluative work prepared by the team, is available for download here.

Using a large aerial map, the open-house also asked visitors to identify which areas of campus are most loved and which areas are most in need of love. Each participant was given three green and three red stickers to identify their preferences. The resulting map, which is available here, revealed significant consensus. For example, the central green areas of campus and some of the newer facilities (Buller Hall and Nethery Hall, the Howard Performing Arts Center, etc.) were identified as some of the most treasured parts of campus. Older facilities were targeted as areas of concern, especially Lamson Hall, the Science Complex, and the James White Library.

The workshop continued with interactive break-out sessions moderated by the student team members, beginning with a visual preference survey. Participants were asked to review images of other campuses and identify which images could appropriately inspire campus development at Andrews University. Each visitor was given three green and three red stickers to declare their preferred choices, which are summarized here. The results, which included discussion with student moderators, reveal a nuanced complexity of preferences that will be very useful for the design team in moving forward.

Breakout sessions continued with small group discussion about campus planning priorities. Participants used campus maps to debate important issues and identify areas of concern and opportunity. Each small group was asked to reach some consensus on priorities and present their most significant conclusions to the audience. Some of the commonly discussed priorities included agricultural lands and facilities, a future Health & Wellness Center, the need for common facilities for the School of Health Professions, pedestrian-oriented design, and improved connections with our surrounding natural lands. Minutes of these group discussions will be available soon on this website.

The workshop ended with a twenty-question survey about various campus planning issues. Members of the campus community who were not able to attend the workshop can still take this survey here – please participate! The survey results, which are available here, revealed significant consensus on certain topics, including agriculture, native species landscaping, access to natural resources, architectural design, pedestrian issues, and the long-term plans for the “front lawn” of the campus.

Following these intensive first two weeks, the Campus Design Studio is now conducting an eight-day field trip to study various campuses in Virginia, DC, and Maryland. This will include Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia, which was praised as a model for campus planning by the first president of our campus, E. A. Sutherland, in his book Studies in Christian Education (available here). During the field trip, the team will also have a chance to interact with various campus planning professionals, a group of DC-area AU alumni, and Elder Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Stay tuned.

The team has spent the past week getting ready for its first campus-wide participatory workshop, which will be held at the Lincoln/Hoosier Rooms of the Campus Center on Sunday, September 9 from 4:00 to 6:00pm. The twenty graduate teams have been preparing preliminary studies and evaluations of existing campus conditions as well as known plans and challenges. Some of this work, which will be presented at the Sunday workshop, is informed by a series of meetings that were conducted with diverse university staff and administrators. So far, this has included meetings about campus planning policy, landscape and agriculture, buildings and services, land use, as well as transportation and parking. Meeting minutes and a record of participants will be posted under “Resources” soon. This photograph from September 6 shows graduate students Nathaniel Beddoe, Nathan Stafford, Jorden Parker, and Agriculture Instructor Garth Woodruff discussing possible locations for future gardens and facilities. In the background, Dean of Libraries Lawrence Onsager is discussing the possible future of the James White Library with students Brandon Hebard and Joshua Wooden. Check back with us soon to download a visual draft summary of the preliminary campus studies.