Nowhere is long-range strategic planning more important and effective than in the shaping of physical environments, and few physical environments benefit from comprehensive planning more than campus environments.  Open space areas serve to link the campus; in fact, adequate circulation of faculty, students, and staff supports the goals of universities.

The University of Texas at Austin acknowledged this fact as early as 1909 when President Mezes appointed Cass Gilbert, the respected New York architect, to produce a general plan for the University.  That plan was followed with great care and attention through the early 1930’s, producing 12 outstanding buildings, all of which continue to serve the University well.

In 1933, the University once again sought an outstanding architect to produce a development plan for the campus.  Paul Cret of Philadelphia was selected, and he produced a master plan that guided campus building for the next 20 years.  Cret’s plan has served the University productively and has, along with buildings built under the Cass Gilbert plan, created a coherent core environment crucial in shaping the character of the University as an institution.

Since the mid-1950’s, the University, like many of its sister institutions, has conducted its physical planning on a less systematic, more reactive basis.  While this reactive planning has served its basic needs to accommodate increased growth in students, faculty, and staff, there is a general feeling that the result has been an unnecessarily fragmented campus, both functionally and aesthetically.  There is now a strong resolve to improve upon the campus character that has been developed over the last 30 years.

In September 1993, President Robert M. Berdahl appointed a Campus Master Planning Committee chaired by Austin M.  Gleeson, Chairman of the Faculty Building Advisory Committee.  Its 14 members include faculty, staff, administration, and student representatives as well as personnel from the UT System Office of Facilities, Planning, and Construction.  The Committee was charged with formulating a framework for the commissioning of a campus master plan and with acting as client representative during the master planning process.

During the fall of 1993, the Committee reviewed master planning processes at a number of peer institutions and examined current institutional activities concerning land use and construction on the University campus.  The Committee also discussed various potential master-planning strategies and identified the primary issues the Campus Master Plan should address.  Concurrent with these activities, the Faculty Building Advisory Committee, a standing committee of faculty, students, and staff, has been meeting with representatives from the various schools and colleges on campus to determine future space needs and priorities for future building projects.  During the spring of 1994, the Committee prepared the following planning goals:
 

1.  Academic Community:  The primary goal of the Campus Master Plan is to promote interaction and a sense of community.  The University campus is large and often presents faculty, students, and staff with an environment that is daunting, even threatening.  The size of the University and the many living possibilities in the city promote a lack of identity and a sense of fragmented community.  There is a need for more good, usable open spaces for informal interactions that will contribute to a sense of belongingness and communal spirit.

2.   Extension of the Core Campus:  The central campus represents a distinguished architectural ensemble and serves as the centerpiece of the new Campus Master Plan.  The Plan takes full advantage of opportunities for renovation and placement of new infill buildings within the core where there is great demand for incremental growth.  (The Goldsmith Hall extension has recently offered a good example of such sensitive infill.)  Newer areas of campus need to be integrated with the core campus more effectively than they are currently.  Existing buildings in the core must be used optimally and must be renovated and extended to meet changing needs.

3.   Campus Circulation:  The campus currently has a complex web of circulation systems generated by pedestrian traffic, bicycles, automobiles, buses, and service vehicles.  A thorough assessment of these systems was conducted in order to increase the clarity and efficiency of campus movement and reduce safety risks.  Parking must also be dealt with in a cost-effective and visually pleasing manner that will preserve the pedestrian character of the campus.

4.   Campus Expansion:  the University has recently acquired or consolidated several tracts of land that will be used for campus expansion.  These include the district to the north of the campus bounded by 26th Street, 27th Street, Guadalupe and Speedway; the district to the east of the campus including the parcel between Red River and Interstate 35 south of 26th Street; and all the University's holdings east of Interstate 35.  A clear, well-documented physical plan is needed for these areas that will incorporate existing structures with significant parcels available for new construction.  All of this planning for expansion should take into account the availability of parcels for University expansion at Balcones and elsewhere, though the planning of outlying parcels was not within the scope of this project.  Assessment should also be made as to whether the University should acquire any new properties adjacent to the campus in order to optimize its current investments.

5.   Relation to Adjacent Environments:  It is important that the Plan acknowledge that the campus does not exist as an island in the city, but depends heavily on residential, commercial, and institutional environments around it.  The campus must have strong functional connections to its surroundings while maintaining some special identity.  City of Austin and State of Texas planning efforts, especially the prospect of a light rail system west of campus, the near completion of the Waller Creek Hike and Bike Trail System, and the development of the north capital complex, should be strong generators of campus planning directions.

6.   Campus Infrastructure:  Campus service must be effective and cost efficient.  Projections regarding service and utilities requirements of the campus must be a significant consideration in generating the Plan.  Current investments in utilities infrastructure must be taken into account in projecting the manner in which these facilities should be configured in the future to best meet the long-term needs of the campus.

7.   Visual Character of the Campus:  The contiguous campus area should appear as a unified entity with well-defined gateways.  Architects working at the University should be given design guidelines that indicate the institution's priorities in terms of the visual character of the campus.  Part of the master planning process should include the definition and delineation of these design guidelines, including notation of building scale, general material character, and color, as well as a description of landscape character and design of small-scale interventions such as benches, light standards, trash receptacles, service areas, bike racks, and kiosks.  The design guidelines should describe the goal of a rich campus aesthetic that provides for both unity and accommodation.  These guidelines should be used to develop a strategy for accommodating the changes in the mission of the institution and the tremendous growth in the student, faculty, and staff populations.

8.   Historical Importance of the Campus:  A historic preservation plan for the campus should be prepared as part of the Campus Master Plan, that would determine which buildings on campus merit assiduous and thorough preservation and which buildings are candidates for respectful adaptive re-use.  This will be a valuable document in making decisions about building maintenance and improvements in the future.  It will also assure the State and the public that the University takes seriously its responsibility as steward of an important artifact in the history of Texas.

9.   Campus Orientation and Wayfinding:  Currently, it is difficult for both visitors and regular users to find their way around the campus.  Building names, signs, maps, and other orientation devices should be improved to reduce frustration with wayfinding.  Information nodes may need to be identified at strategic locations on campus, which would reduce the intrusiveness of signs, posters, announcements, and information services on the campus as a whole.

Successful redirection of the physical Plan will require multiple interventions, large and small.  The design proposals will be built over decades and will individually and collectively contribute to the creation of an environment that expresses intellectual, social, and environmental integrity.

The new ambitious and comprehensive Master Plan will affect the physical and spiritual future of the campus.  Its underlying objective is to support and embody a sense of community for students, faculty, and staff and to create a sense of place that will remain strong and clear in the memories of graduates.  Another objective is to reverse the current tendency toward decentralization of planning in response to growth.  The Plan is unusual in that it addresses the planned growth of an already mature campus; it must therefore be restorative and healing as it guides new development.  The Plan is developed around the following major principles:
 

• The 40 Acres, A Pedestrian Core Campus:  Under the Plan, all daily traffic and parking will be removed from Inner Campus Drive, Speedway and 24th Street between Whitis Avenue, and Speedway.  These streets will become pedestrian rights-of-way and will, over time, be redesigned with new and more pedestrian-friendly walking surfaces, landscape elements, street furniture, and lighting.  Parking spaces displaced from these streets will be replaced by new, carefully designed structures that will include parking for the disabled and will be built in or near the central part of the campus.  Service traffic will be restricted to specific times of day and specific destinations.  Conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists will be resolved by creating separate bicycle lanes and establishing a dismount zone within the 40 Acres where all bicycles will be walked, not ridden.  In time, Speedway, to be renamed North Congress Street, will become a central location for informal gathering and food service, featuring a vital, densely populated, accessible, and accommodating linear plaza with both hard and soft landscaping.  Its redesign will establish it both as a daily source of casual interaction and as the site of street fairs and special events, such as the 40 Acres Festival.

• An Established Architectural Language:  New buildings on the campus must correspond in massing, scale, proportion, materials, and building character to the University’s most revered structures.  The University has an extraordinary collection of older Beaux Arts buildings from the 1930’s and 1940’s, which were designed by gifted architects sensitive to program needs, spatial characteristics, and the climate of the campus.  The sum of their contributions resulted in a unique fabric of architectural style that should serve as the point of departure and aesthetic reference for designers of future additions to the University.  Architects who design additions to the campus must be charged with reinterpreting and matching the standards of excellence initiated by Paul Cret.  While it is not suggested that future architects reproduce the architecture of Cass Gilbert, Herbert M.  Greene, or Paul Cret, it is intended that their works establish the basic language of form and character for large and small buildings designed for the University from this point forward.

• A Community of Open Spaces:  In the 1930’s, Paul Cret brought to the campus careful definition of open space among buildings.  These open spaces, large and small, formal and informal, combined to create a beautiful and coherent academic environment.  The Master Plan draws upon Cret’s earlier sensitivity to the spaces between buildings and uses it as a point of departure for new design.  A campus is a careful intertwining of built and open space, which allows for the communal space to weave buildings into an academic community.  The creation of a variety of new spaces that vary in treatment and importance from ceremonial malls to mainly pedestrian streets is sought for the campus.  Plantings, pavements, and urban furniture will provide new communal spaces across the campus.  These open spaces will become the connective tissue of the campus (particularly important in Austin, where climate allows for nearly year-round use of outdoor space); and collectively they will serve to bind all buildings into a unit of academic life.

The Master Plan draws upon Cret’s careful attention to exterior space as integral to the whole and existing in equal partnership with buildings.  The Plan also draws on his 1933 Master Plan as a point of departure for the design of new spaces.  A hierarchy of space has been established, privileging Cret’s formal malls of the south, east and west, and creating categories of malls, plazas, walking streets, courtyards, and parks to establish a community of open spaces of different character and use.
 
• On-Campus Housing:  The student population of the University totals 48,000, but only 5,200 students (substantially less than the size of any incoming freshman class) can be housed on campus.  To support the academic, social, and recreational needs of an academic community, it is essential that substantial numbers of students live on campus.  It is in the undergraduate experience of working and living together that the spirit and collegiality of the institution is maintained.

New housing should complement concentrations of student activity and the natural environment, creating learning and living community within the boundaries of the University.  It is proposed that substantial new housing be sited to take advantage of the natural beauty of Waller Creek and should more than double the number of housing units available on campus to students.  Additional on-campus housing will also help reduce the demand for parking spaces and thus strengthen the pedestrian environment.  The addition of new housing on campus will make a positive contribution to increasing academic and social interaction and extend a sense of security throughout the day.

• Centers for Student Activity:  New social and recreational activity centers are needed to accommodate established concentrations of students in the eastern part of the University campus.  The addition of two student unions of substantial size will create a three-union system anchored by the historic Texas Student Union building on the West Mall.  The new Union North will serve the needs of students in the vicinity of the College of Engineering.  Union South is designed as an adjunct to the expanded recreational facilities in the Gregory Gymnasium Complex and the Recreational Sports Center, and it is located close to new housing in the south, further supporting students’ daily activities on campus.  A new Recreation Center at Gregory Gymnasium will provide the existing gym with additional recreational facilities.

Designed by Paul Cret, the Texas Union was once close to the geographic center of the campus.  The current size of the University and its facilities requires a re-examination of what is known as the center of the campus and its central axis.  New centers for student activity will complement new student housing and further support the life of the University.

• Increased Density in the Core Campus:  It is proposed that future development be concentrated within the core campus west of Interstate Highway 35.  Establishing new structures in this way reinforces the pedestrian quality of the campus by creating convenient walking distances of less than 10 minutes between destinations.  The Master Plan allows for the development of 3,250,000 square feet, which will include a complete, beautiful set of buildings and open spaces in this historic part of the campus.

In addition to expanding overall available square footage, new buildings should be designed to defer to and define the open spaces.  By redesigning existing open space, several quadrangles can be created.  As perimeter buildings are added, these quadrangles will be completed, thereby supplying the density that will intensify the public focus of open space.

• Strengthened Identity of the Campus:  The entrance to a campus represents a point of transition, the symbolic gateway to a collegiate community.  The Master Plan proposes three scales of gateways.  The largest scale is found upon approaching the campus after exiting Interstate Highway 35; the intermediate is located at points where one walks or drives from adjacent city streets; and the smallest is primarily for pedestrians, marking thresholds into key areas of the campus, especially the original 40 Acres.  These gateways serve both as place markers and as locations for obtaining information about the University, its history, and its activities.  Wayfinding and signage, consistent and easily visible, will contribute to a sense of place and define these points of transition.

A new major entry to the campus is planned to the east, at the end of Manor Road.  By connecting Manor Road under I-35, the campus will be connected to facilities and activities located to the east.  This new entrance will provide vehicular access much needed in this area of campus.  Visitor centers are proposed within the Tower, Littlefield House, and the new South University Avenue parking garage.

In the later stages of the Master Plan, a separate Master Plan for long-term development of the Texas Memorial Stadium was undertaken in cooperation with the University Master Plan process.  This plan was completed in 1996 and is now serving as the framework for the development of the athletic facilities on campus.

Besides the recommendations, the master planning process has prepared a large volume of material that will be useful to the future implementation of the Plan.  The Josey Room in the Flawn Academic Center, which had served as the workroom for the planning process, has been established as a gallery space for Master Plan models and boards with display materials.  In addition, this space has been used for the planning of new capital projects.  Other Master Plan materials will be moved to the Physical Plant Building in a space established as an orientation place in which the guidelines of the Master Plan will be displayed and other materials will be curated with explanatory writing to enable a self-directed tour of the planning process.

The success of the Master Plan will rest on the ability to implement the building and open space proposals.  A large-format glossy book has been completed and will document the Master Plan in colored drawings and diagrams.  This book also serves as a direct tool for the Development Office in providing potential donors with an overview of the Plan, and will allow all University alumni to stay informed as to how their alma mater is investing in the future quality of the physical environment.  A version of the book is being prepared for web access and will be encoded onto a CD for general distribution.  The glossy book will also have a greater audience beyond those people connected with the University.  It will serve as a means of information to the world that the University is implementing a Master Plan of high caliber. The book will be a valuable resource to other universities and architects by providing an overview of the unique collaborative effort that has evolved in the forging of the Plan.

A detailed technical volume will supplement the glossy book with specific implementation directions for architects and engineers.  This volume, titled “Architectural Design Guidelines,” is the compilation of all detailed reports of the several consultants on the Master Plan from disciplines including architecture, landscape architecture, circulation and traffic, historic preservation, graphics and way-finding, and civil engineering.  The building and open space design guidelines are also included.  A compendium of prescriptive analyses, the guidelines will serve as a specific guideline for response necessary to implement the Master Plan.  Conceived to be a black-and-white file of recommendations and expectations, the guidelines will serve as a perspective set of common goals, which will need continual renewal and adaptation as programs and uses evolve over time.  This volume is completed and ready for distribution.

Since the approval of the principles of the Master Plan, there has been an aggressive effort to begin implementation.  Several new buildings that were initiated before the Plan was complete but that received considerable guidance from the Plan are now completed.  These buildings include the Moffett Molecular Biology Building, the Student Services Building, a large parking garage, and the renovated of Gregory Gymnasium.  Many more buildings and projects initiated after the completion of the Plan have now been completed, including the renovation of the Memorial Stadium, construction of a new Track and Soccer Stadium, expansion of Neuhaus-Royal (all part of the Stadium Master Plan), a large garage east of the Stadium, renovation of the Gebauer Building and Welch Hall, construction of a University Interscholastic League Building, expansion of the Law School, and a Women’s Softball Field.  Under construction are a new Psychology and Child Development and Family Relations Building, a new 850-bed residence hall, an expansion of Taylor Hall to accommodate the Computer Sciences and Computer Engineering faculty, an administration and classroom building, and two parking garages on the north end of campus.  We have initiated design on several open space projects.  These include adding a gateway and modifying the West Mall, creating a commemorative garden near the Tower and in the Anna Hiss Court Yard, developing an outdoor pool, opening Manor Road at I-35 and extending the East Mall across Speedway.  We have initiated the design of a new Biology Building and an Art Museum.  In addition, a comprehensive transportation study including gateways and signage is now underway.
 

Updated June 1, 2000.

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