Meetings collect ideas for campus master plan

As planners map the future of the UW–Madison campus, they need to embrace the Wisconsin Idea, incorporate a strong environmental ethic and improve transportation options, speakers told officials drafting a new campus master plan.

A yearlong effort to create a plan that will guide future improvements for the next 10 to 20 years is under way, and last week officials met with the public in a pair of meetings to discuss ideas to make the campus more workable and livable.

“It’s important to give people a gateway to come to this campus,” said Tom Zinnen, outreach specialist at the Biotechnology Center and for UW-Extension. “Two of the things that make us remarkable are shared governance and the Wisconsin Idea. Let’s make the campus a destination for exploration.”

In a meeting held at the Red Gym, Zinnen also said that architects and planners have to take a long-term view when designing buildings. He used the renovation of the Red Gym as an example.

“If you want historic buildings to survive in the future, they have to have a vibrant and vital function,” Zinnen said.

Associate Vice Chancellor Alan Fish said some of the buildings constructed on campus in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were poorly conceived, and constructed in a hurry to meet the demands of a burgeoning post-baby-boom generation. More than 50 buildings were constructed here in the 1960s alone.

One example is the 1965-vintage Ogg Hall, which is slated for demolition once sufficient new residence hall space is constructed.

“Some of them were bad buildings,” Fish said. “Buildings like Chamberlin Hall, Sterling Hall and the School of Human Ecology have great bones. We can completely restore them and make them useful. But we have some antiquated, single-purpose buildings that need to be replaced.”

Sherrie Gruder, a sustainable design specialist at UW Extension, urged officials to use the master plan to promote green building strategies to make the campus more sustainable.

“Why not use the campus as part of a teaching lab, establish green development guidelines, and engage faculty and students across disciplines in aspects of designing and building green buildings and monitoring them afterwards?” she asked. “Student involvement would help students become more competitive in the marketplace today.”

Erhard Joeres, interim director of the Institute for Environmental Studies, said the campus’ planning needs to be more integrated with that of the city. He cited the city’s decision not to lower Johnson Street during its recent reconstruction, allowing for a pedestrian walkway near Murray Street.

“Once again, we’re dodging cars,” Joeres said. “We have these barriers and some of that has to do with working with our city.”

Fish said providing transportation options is key to the campus’s future development. Currently, about 98 acres — more than 10 percent of the 933-acre campus — is devoted to parking lots.

“Our plan is not to increase parking,” Fish said. “Simply saying that cars are bad is not a realistic strategy. We have to give people choices that are cost-effective and attractive, so they don’t have to use their cars. And, we have to be aware that, for some, cars are a necessity and those people need to be accommodated.”

Fish said that one of the goals of the master plan is to create a more connected campus, and a campus that is more connected to the city around it, yet well-defined with a sense of place.

“Campus identity is hard here,” Fish said. “As we grew in the last 20 to 40 years, we spread west and south, and we have a hard time defining who we are.”

Part of that definition could come in establishing some architectural review or guidelines, said Herman Felstehausen, emeritus professor of urban and regional planning.

“Our campus has struggled mightily with architectural planning. We have architecture on this campus that even our leaders have said is ugly as sin,” Felstehausen said. “I’d like to see an urban esthetic.”

Gary Brown, campus director of planning and landscape architecture, said the master plan will try to come up with architectural guidelines for the campus to help define the campus and make sure that buildings agree with their surroundings.

Although Brown said that UW–Madison is not like Rice University or Stanford University, which have developed using thematic architecture, efforts can be made to have future buildings look more compatible with the campus.

“We need to look at what aspects we can add to campus that will give it character and establish neighborhoods,” Brown said.

The master plan, which is being developed along with Baltimore consultants Ayers Saint Gross, will examine future building needs, open space, transportation and utilities. A draft of the plan is expected to be available in March 2005, with a final plan ready by September.

To contribute suggestions to make the campus more functional, and for more details about the planning process, visit: http://www.uc.wisc.edu/masterplan/.