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EARLY PLANNING This drawing by the architectural firm Ayers Saint Gross is the "concept plan" for future development of the University. The concept plan is a rough draft for the firm's eventual recommendations. In this plan, the black shapes are existing buildings while the red shapes show potential sites for future buildings. The drawing also shows potential open spaces. The master plan process will continue through the end of the year, with the firm working with people on campus to fine-tune the concept plan, section-by-section, until a final recommendation is reached. A master plan web site -- which the campus community may use to provide feedback on ideas -- will be online within the next two weeks. The Gazette will announce the site's URL in its next issue, Feb. 24. |
Even a quick glance at Adam Gross' aerial drawing of west campus from Cameron Avenue to Manning Drive revealed that Venable Hall was gone.
In place of the huge building were several red, block-shaped forms drawn by Gross, a partner in the consulting firm of Ayers Saint Gross and the leader of the team conducting the University's ongoing master plan.
Farther south on the drawing was another large, red block covering what now is the Bell Tower parking lot. The consultants also had scattered plenty of red blotches around UNC Hospitals and the Kenan Laboratories.
A closer viewing of the map revealed that sections could be peeled off to uncover a second, third or fourth collection of sample buildings. Each layer showed another view of what the campus could look like in 10-20 years.
"Part of this process is to vet these ideas," Gross said. "They are just that: ideas. They are not set in stone or even recommendations."
Gross and his team spent Jan. 27-29 on campus refining their latest ideas. On the first day, Gross spent more than 10 hours in meetings explaining the proposed drawing to various groups of University administrators, faculty, staff and students. In each presentation, Gross peeled back parts of the drawing to get his audiences to say what they liked and what they didn't.
"It's like an eye test: Do you like this one or this one?" said Luanne Greene, a member of the consulting master plan team.
Armed with the answers, the Ayers Saint Gross team worked late into the night on new drawings that aimed to keep what people liked and toss out what they didn't. The consultants then spent a day showing the edited drawings to the same people for more feedback.
Welcome to the ongoing campus master plan, a process that mingles pie-in-the-sky ideas with the cold realities of locating mundane features such as steam tunnels and chiller plants and where every idea is marked "tentative."
So far the master plan has led to a "concept plan," a term the consultants use to mean general themes and a rough sketch that they will follow during their work.
Those themes include making south campus more like north campus and trying to duplicate the feel of Polk Place campuswide.
The concept plan's rough sketch includes general ideas such as expanding health affairs into what now is Odum Village, creating a swath of green space on the eastern edge of health affairs and forming courtyards through south campus by building three- and four-story buildings rather than the high-rise residence halls that now exist. (See map on this page for a look at the Concept Plan.)
The master planning effort has settled into what Ayers Saint Gross labels the "precinct phase." That's where the campus is divided into four sections, and the consultants examine each section -- or precinct -- in closer detail. They do this with help from people from the various schools and departments located in the precinct as well as campus planners, utilities experts and facilities planners.
Precinct one covers the western side of campus, the part detailed in the oversized drawing Gross and his team presented. Their suggestions came after walking around the precinct in December with people who work there.
Many of the consultants' suggestions were radical. For example, in addition to razing Venable Hall to make way for a new building, they suggested incorporating an underground garage in the low spot Venable now occupies. Buildings then would go atop the garage.
The consultants suggested creating another underground garage where the Bell Tower lot now is by building a sort of parking deck on the lot and then constructing buildings and a plaza on top of that deck.
One popular idea was building a pedestrian bridge over South Road from the south side of Dey Hall to near Coker Hall. Such a bridge would connect high points on either side of the trench encompassing South Road.
"That would prevent people from having to walk downhill and then back up, so we think people would use it," Gross said.
While the three days of meetings helped Ayers Saint Gross fine-tune their ideas on the precinct, nothing has been settled.
Gross said his firm would take the drawings back to its Baltimore headquarters and make even more adjustments based on the comments received.
The consultants will return Feb. 23-25 with the aim of finalizing their proposal for the precinct and starting work on the next, which will cover the southeastern corner of campus. That area includes everything south of South Road and west of Kenan Stadium and the new health affairs parking decks.
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