Master Planning

• Introduction and Overview
• Institutional Mission and Master Planning
• The Master Planning Process
• Leadership, Outreach, and Stakeholders
• Background Analysis
• Design Framework and Typical Master Plan Elements
• Some Special Twenty-first Century Issues
• Formats and Audiences
• Implementation, Updates, and Monitoring
• Endnotes and References

Introduction and Overview

Campus master plans guide the physical development needed to support the mission and strategic plan of an institution of higher education. They direct how various parts of the physical environment:  facilities, open spaces, housing, circulation, and so on come together to meet the needs of the college or university.

An Overview

Every campus engages in long-range planning. Its strategic plan builds on its institutional mission (and specifically, its purposes considering academics, research, student life, athletics, outreach, service, and support programs). The strategic plan expresses the campus’s broadest vision of itself and how it will direct its financial and other resources for achieving that vision. On the basis of its strategic plan, the campus develops other long-range plans, including its physical master plan. The master plan indicates where buildings, open spaces, circulation systems, utilities, and other elements of the campus environment will be located. The physical master plan must have as its touchstone the institution’s mission and strategic plan.

Historically, the physical master plan has been most simply expressed on a campus map, showing existing and future facilities as envisioned within a particular time frame. However, modern plans must be more than a static image of the future. The plan must be adaptable to changing conditions, both challenges and opportunities, while providing adequate guidance so that important concepts are sustained, and not compromised to attain lesser short-term advantages over more significant long-term benefits. One important way of doing this is to articulate principles that will direct implementation even in ambiguous or unanticipated conditions. Balancing adaptability with sound directives is the key challenge of campus master planning.

The physical master plan also includes an implementation strategy or program. Implementation will likely include much more detailed planning, leading to cost and funding analyses, architectural programming, and design and construction of buildings and other facilities, as well as the detailed planning and preservation of important open spaces and other physical resources. Such physical aspects of a campus are always closely tied to the institution’s natural environment, history, culture, and social, legal, and financial contexts.

The physical master plan will also include measures—observable events or outcomes that allow the campus community to monitor whether or not the plan is being implemented, and that highlight areas where the plan is not working and needs to be adjusted.

Thus, while master plans can come in a variety of formats, using different planning approaches, most include at least the following:

• An understanding of the institution’s particular mission and strategic plan for the future, including its academic and enrollment aspirations
• Goals for meeting the mission and strategy through the site plan, buildings, landscaping, and other physical elements of the campus
• An analysis of existing conditions and capacities
• Principles that will guide the location and form of physical changes to the campus
• Implementation programs to turn the plan into reality
• Measures that can be used to track the plan’s implementation

Sustainable Master Planning—The  Plan Is More Than a Map

While a two-dimensional picture of the future campus used to be the master plan, the map is now only a visual component of a more dynamic process. Maps continue to be valuable tools, but static plans constrained by a formal map and bound by beginning and end points are frequently out of date as soon as they are printed. They become stagnant and difficult to adjust.

Today, universities and colleges find themselves in turbulent circumstances, where rapid change is commonplace. This changing environment presents challenges to the institution, but also new, previously unforeseen opportunities. Thus, new master plans tend to be:

• Seen within an ongoing process that is adaptable to changing circumstances
• Integrated with other long-term campus plans, especially the strategic plan, and thus programmatically driven
• Able to guide decisions even in unanticipated situations

The relationship between the strategic plan and the physical master plan is recursive: while the strategic plan provides direction based on the university mission, the master plan process can inform the campus about issues and opportunities that the strategic plan should address.

Public awareness of global climate change provides an excellent example of the dynamic context of campus planning and how universities need to be able to respond to new circumstances and conditions. Early in the twentieth century, campus planners focused on the features of the site (land suitability) when doing physical planning; in the latter half the century, they began to think about mitigating environmental impacts of development. Now, in the early twenty-first century, campus planners take a much more holistic approach, looking at environmental sustainability from all perspectives, including resource consumption, waste production, and greenhouse gas emissions. Such an evolution means not only that campus plans are being developed with much greater sensitivity to environmental issues, but also that university operations are being managed differently to reduce life cycle costs and long-term impacts. Administrative units and student organizations promote behavioral changes that make campus life more sustainable through initiatives like recycling, carpooling, and reducing one’s “carbon footprint.” Further, the academic mission of universities and the educational process have expanded to incorporate research and curricula focused on environmental protection, conservation, and restoration. The master planning process that follows provides a framework for incorporating environmental sustainability as one of the many parameters associated with campus planning. In addition, the subchapter on special twenty-first century issues provides detailed principles for integrating environmental sustainability in the master planning process.

Purposes—Why Do We Make Campus Master Plans?

Campuses are communities and must have the facilities, including buildings, open spaces, circulation systems, utilities, and so on, to serve their students, faculty, staff, and guests. Like any community, universities and colleges must be carefully laid out in order to create a physical environment that is functional, pleasant, safe, sustainable, and supportive of its wide-ranging programs. Master plans are the overarching expression of that physical environment, with an implementation program for achieving the desired conditions.

Master plans are also used for many other internal and external purposes:

• Marketing
• Analyzing potential for future physical development
• Guiding building and landscape design
• Supporting capital campaigns and improved funding opportunities
• Creating and enhancing partnerships
• Integrating town-gown relationships
• Increasing operating efficiencies
• Improving space allocation and utilization
• Attaining state and/or board approvals

Timing—When Should We Make a Campus Master Plan?

Good plans are adaptable and responsive to changes in program needs. Many campuses use a regular review to gauge progress and make adjustments to accommodate programmatic changes. Intervals of two to five years are usually adequate to recognize changes in academic programs, technology, and other needs that will drive adjustments to the plan.

From time to time it is important to undertake more than a routine review and reexamine the premises and principles. The most common circumstances in which a major new master planning process should be initiated include the following:

• A change in leadership
• Revision of the institution’s strategic plan, especially when it involves a change in direction that affects the physical development of the campus, such as a change in the academic program mix, an increase in student residential living on campus, or a focus on environmental sustainability
• A significant anticipated increase in enrollment
• An opportunity for expanding campus lands nearby or at a different site
• New regulatory or funding requirements¹

A Master Plan by Any Other Name

. . . would still provide the means for guiding the physical development of the campus.

Physical master plans can be called by many titles, including physical development plan, facilities master plan, master facilities plan, long-range development plan, and comprehensive campus plan. Regardless of the title, planning for the physical development of the campus, including its open space and circulation systems, is the topic of this chapter.

Universities sometimes undertake more focused plans that may also be called master plans—such as a bicycle master plan, utilities master plan, or even landscape master plan. In these cases, the use of the term “master plan” refers to the conceptual breadth or university-wide application of the plan, even though the topic is specific.