Up Front | President's Column

September 1998: Vol. 77, No. 4

Building a future from the past

Adams
Michael F. Adams

o University of Georgia alumni, some 200,000 strong, the campus in Athens is sacred ground.

It is the scene of many of their most hallowed memories, and of their rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Preserving and improving the beauty and functionality of our campus (see photo essay) as it grows to accommodate more students, more faculty/staff, and more research is both a major challenge and a grand opportunity.

With the help of a superb team of consultants from the Baltimore firm of Ayers/Saint/Gross, we have worked over the past year to identify the very best physical elements of the UGA campus, and to use those key elements to develop a Master Plan to direct our approaches to building new buildings, renovating older ones, and moving people around campus. As we strive to create a more effective educational environment, we must also take into consideration such factors as topography, vegetation, traffic and parking patterns, academic and extracurricular uses and aspirations, athletic needs and uses, and current and projected facilities.

Our physical planning group--led by Senior Vice President Allan Barber, University Architect Danny Sniff, and consulting group leader Adam Gross--is working hard to develop that Master Plan for physical aspects of campus. While that plan is still being formulated, we have reached a few conclusions on key principles which will help shape the final plan. Among those key principles are:

Everyone wants a more "walkable" and interactive campus, with human-scaled buildings framing attractive, well-landscaped open spaces. North Campus is clearly the paradigm for the 600-acre main campus, and we need to extend that model to the entire University.
Roadways and parking patterns must be redesigned to move the heaviest traffic and some parking to the periphery of the campus. We need to build additional parking decks to handle on-campus parking. We must also decongest our road network and bus routes for quicker, more efficient service.
While the University will undoubtedly add millions of square feet of buildings over the next decade or two, we can do it in a tasteful manner by increasing the utility of the campus and by planning the campus as an interconnected series of attractive green spaces framed by buildings.
Our campus would benefit from being less elongated. We'll look for opportunities to grow east-west, as well as south.
Benches, gardens, and walkways are among the campus' most beautiful features, and should be multiplied.
The campus would benefit from more architectural coherence, and we must develop some strong parameters for the construction of new buildings and renovation of older ones to achieve that coherence. The use of classic architectural styles such as sloped roofs, distinctive entries, traditional windows, and appropriately proportioned height-to-width ratios will serve as a benchmark for future building designs.

This proposed pedestrian mall--which would extend from the vet college up D.W. Brooks Drive to Conner Hall--is part of a draft Master Plan to add more greenways and interconnected walkways to campus, making it more friendly and interactive. To learn more about Dr. Adams' thoughts on building a sense of community at UGA, visit this page from our December 1998 issue.

These principles are already guiding current projects. The Jackson Street improvement project is one example: Here we are installing bike lanes, widening sidewalks, burying overhead electrical lines and providing bus pull-off lanes. These improvements will enhance the beauty and efficiency of Jackson Street and North Campus.

So even before we achieve a final version of our Master Plan for the Physical Plant, I hope you will begin to see the effects of the University-wide conversation we're having on the future of the campus. Every sidewalk we reshape and every shrub we plant is part of our plan to make the University of Georgia campus an even more beautiful and effective learning environment. Come see for yourself--and share your ideas for the future of this great University with us.