Living-Learning Workshop with the Design Advisory Group

 From: Paddy Tillett

Participants: Fred Tepfer , Alex Gordon, Brian McCarthy (CMGS), Michael Fifield, Steve Pickett, Drew Morgan , Tom Driscoll, Garry Fritz , Nancy Wright, Mark Foster, Alyson Rogers, Paddy Tillett

DRAFT

Initial Brainstorming:

  1. The objective is to get lots of concepts out on the table. See the Agenda. Introduction should include a recital of how we arrived at this stage — an expedited planning process. What is the timeframe? Three workshops are proposed over the next four weeks. How can this project improve the campus? is the objective for this first workshop. We will develop a lot and reject a few. The consultant team will go away and work on these before the next workshop, at which they will be further critiqued and refined. Concepts should be narrowed to three at the end of the second workshop, and to one at the third. Begin this first workshop by identifying interventions with the greatest potential for beneficial change to the campus. To begin with, we would like to stay away from the internal aspects of the living-learning center.
  2. This project should be seen as a first step in a whole series of improvements that will be made on the campus over the next ten to twenty years. Important considerations include:
  1. Historically there were houses where the residential buildings now are, with the academic campus to the west. Now there is a conscious effort to surpass that history to make a single, integrated campus. At its best it will enhance existing conditions and create new ones. It is about heightening a sense of what this institution is all about.
  2. People spend much more time out of doors today than they did a few years ago. If we create the right kinds of spaces, then the indoor-outdoor distinction can be diffused.
  3. When we talk about breaking down the residential zone, we should recognize that all the sites under consideration are within the residential zone. Could we consider other sites, given that this project competes with research and teaching? If a pattern for behavior that extends living into learning and academic into residential makes sense, then there may be virtue in that. We should certainly consider all candidate sites.
  4. We have developed so many prescriptive codes to prevent bad things from happening. The landscape architect is the ‘outside guy’ while the architect gets the wall to define what is inside and what outside. In this context, consider the dictum of four-story limits. There have been taller buildings that have created wonderful internal and outdoor spaces, without eating up too much of the site.
  5. If you frame the four-story limit in terms of preserving open space, you will get a predictable response. The limit was introduced as part of the Oregon Experiment, following a spate of development that included some taller buildings. There was concern about losing touch with the ground. If you lift the height limit, the virtue may be lost in the stampede. The language of this limit states that it is a limit imposed to maintain a comfortable scale in the campus. The Business School stories are much taller than four stories of residence.
  6. Where cars go is a major part of this discussion. All parking on campus is on surface lots now. Basement spaces provide a solution for a five story building in a four story limit, but have problems of their own.
  7. Alexander’s book is thirty years old, and we had only 12,000 students then. We cannot rewrite the Long Range Plan in the next four weeks, but perhaps we can observe its intentions in other ways.

    8. Analysis Plans:

  8. At this juncture, let us (the consultant team) rehearse our ideas as another set of ingredients. Drawing 1 shows quads, malls and view corridors from the Long Range Development Plan. The tennis courts site was labeled as an open square in the intended checkerboard pattern of the campus. In fact, when one looks at the actual sequence of open spaces, one finds a very different pattern. How are the designated open spaces used? The tennis courts are open only to the sky. The open space north of the Rec. Center is surrounded by circulating traffic, and so is diminished in its usefulness.
  9. If the tennis courts became a building, then it would become a four-story building rather than a virtual single story building that is there now. The real issue is the quality of the actual open space between this room and the tennis courts; it is a poor quality space for parking bicycles. If the tennis courts became a lawn, the quality would change dramatically.
  10. When the main promenade is overlaid on the actual open space and circulation space, the picture is completed, and opportunities become apparent. Planned projects tend to ring the periphery of the developed campus. The Business School is comparable in size to the proposed Living-Learning building on the map.
  11. Another map compares coverage versus density. It distinguishes ground floor plans of the residence halls from upper floors, where the center of each is open.
  12. Design Principles drawn from the Long Range Plan have been juxtaposed with photographs of the campus that show contrasting interpretations of some of them.
  13. Defined open spaces and through-spaces are found to terminate at the residential buildings: at odds with the checkerboard concept. There is a clear opportunity to extend those open spaces into the residential area as the living-learning concept is implemented, if sited appropriately. Residence halls present an effective wall to the north and west at present.
  14. At Earl Hall, for example one steps from the intimacy of a granite doorway into a large and undefined open space, without benefit of one of the more finely defined spaces found elsewhere on site.
  15. That distinction between different parts of the campus had not been apparent before. Some of the smaller scaled open spaces on the eastern part of the campus do not work because they are unconnected to the open space system as a whole. Walton and Hamilton form a wall, making the mall through the residential buildings too private to be effective. The space one story above the residence hall is quite wasted. It is surprising to see how much space the residence halls squander in this way. From ground level, they look large and impenetrable buildings.
  16. Wherever you live, you need to be able to eat too. There would be at least a café within the living-learning center. But the need is for three meals a day, nine months a year. If the center is too far from the kitchens, then it cannot be served.

    17. Concepts:

  17. Take Hamilton, Walton and Dean, and fill in the empty cores with four story buildings. The same treatment could be applied to Bean.
  18. Site the living-learning center on the tennis courts site, but with transparency towards the Rec. Center, to Earl and to Straub.
  19. Demolish the west wings of Walton, and extend a new open space from within Walton, across the tennis court into Earl, then build the living-learning center north and south of the open space.
  20. Take out the Dyment wing of Walton, then build there and on the south side of Carson and in the Walton core, with an indoor-outdoor open space leading diagonally through it onto the Promenade.
  21. Daylight basements on the south face of Carson could be projected out towards the Promenade.
  22. How does all this relate to century trees and other specimens in the tree plan? Let’s discuss that later.
  23. Build in the middle of the Promenade next to the tennis courts to give definition to the open spaces on each side of it, and to energize the Promenade itself.
  24. The open space west of Straub is just a big space with diagonal pathways. It is underused. This could support new buildings as well as new open spaces to create vitality here. If we design with the trees in mind, much can be done without displacing them. In some cases, too many trees have been planted, so some careful editing will be necessary. Straub displaced some tennis courts, so if the surviving ones are built upon, would it make dense to put new courts across from the Rec. Center? The corner of University and 15th needs a building.
  25. The Pioneer Graveyard is not mapped as an open space, but is one. Consider a building south and east of Chapman.
  26. Expand the Health & Counseling building (or its replacement) south towards the Promenade, maybe with a link west to a south expansion of Carson that would be single story, extended from the basement. The Health & Counseling building site could be capable of supporting a building twice the size of Carson.
  27. Specific malls and axes lack definition on this campus. Take this as a larger strategy to identify suitable sites. There is much that could be done to make the Promenade safer and more vital, and incidentally achieve a densification of the campus. Projects must, by their activities and their architecture, define open spaces that are appropriate to their specific roles. The concept of a ‘living-learning mall’ has interesting potential.
  28. Build east of Natural History Museum fronting 15th Ave. to form a terminus at the corner for the Promenade. Its use could be one of several possibilities. If it included space for the University Housing office as well as residence hall space, and if it occurs in conjunction with relocating Public Safety from Straub, Living Learning can occur in Straub / Earl. This expansion would then allow for a renovation of Walton.
  29. Rhythm of paths and places along the Promenade can identify nodes of activity logically. Maybe the concept of a living-learning mall is phased over time, beginning near the tennis courts and extending to the southeast.
  30. All of our special schools have excellent undergraduate programs — which influences their location. We could speculate about where future schools might be located, and how these might influence the location of future living-learning mall phases.
  31. Consider inclusion of the Bean courts, and redevelopment options further to the east. This would also make the corridor between Bean and the Bakery site important — especially if the arena is located to the east. The extended Promenade would then parallel 15th.
  32. The Bakery site could accommodate two McArthur Courts.

    33. Review of Concepts:
  33. A. Infill the residential hall cores
      1. Health & Counseling site
      2. Terminus building east of Natural History Museum
      3. Open space west of Straub and Onyx St.
      4. Replace Dyment and core of Walton with diagonal building
      5. Series of living-learning buildings in a mall (strategy for the east campus). This concept would make the parking lot south of Bean more central, and more attractive — but at a later date.
      6. Building SE of Chapman, and buildings north of Susan Campbell and Hendricks
      7. Build on the Promenade
      8. Extend Promenade east between Bakery site and Bean
      9. Move tennis courts south, remove handball courts
      10. Tennis courts with linked open spaces.
      11. Sites west of Education Center
      12. Place living-learning building in academic area and put academic building on tennis courts site.
  34. Eliminate concepts C, I, & F. Concept I becomes a subset of F, which is a wider strategy rather than a specific siting option.
  35. The parking lot south of Bean was previously proposed. We have not included it here; was that intentional? Parking replacement would be an extra cost and it is too far from west campus for the seven-minute class change period. It would become more central under the development strategy described in option F. [note from FT: UO policy requires that all displaced activities be relocated by the project unless the President makes a determination to the contrary. ]
  36. Are there parking needs associated with the living-learning center? Not if they do not increase net enrollment — or such will our argument be. [further note from FT, who had left: This project will need to provide parking at the rate of 1 space per six dormitory beds, assuming that we can get a reduction based on UO TDM measures.]
  37. What should be done concerning displaced facilities necessary for the living-learning facility? We should note these as consequences of each concept, but do no more at this stage.
  38. The City is changing its policy about tree preservation, so be up-front about any that need to be removed. The project also needs to comply with the UO tree preservation policies.
  39. There are drainage issues along the Promenade that need to be addressed; it has become swampy recently. A good principle is to build on sites that need fixing, rather than just choosing an available open site.
  40. Workshops two and three are scheduled for Monday May 19 and June 2 respectively.

Adjourned