Dean Gregory

Campus Planning & Design at the Annual Meeting

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The Illinois Institute of Technology's McCormick Tribune Campus Center image: Alexandra Hay
The Illinois Institute of Technology’s McCormick Tribune Campus Center
image: Alexandra Hay

This year’s ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Chicago is almost here and we look forward to seeing many of you there. The meeting is full of social and educational opportunities for those of us involved in campus planning and design. In addition to the events listed below, there are two additional opportunities we have created for those interested in campus planning and design:

  • Anyone (PPN member or not) is invited to an informal gathering for drinks, conversation, and networking on Saturday, November 7 starting around 6:15 PM (immediately after the Alumni Tailgate) in the M/X Lounge/POI Bar of the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place (2233 South Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive).
  • Northwestern University Campus Tour: on Tuesday, November 10 from 9:30 AM to noon, Ann Ziegelmaier, landscape architect for Northwestern University, will lead an informal tour of the main Northwestern campus for all who are interested. The Northwestern campus is about a 45 minute trip via public transit from the downtown hotels. Although reservations are not required, please RSVP if you think you may attend for additional details.

Among the Annual Meeting’s field and education sessions, on Friday, November 6, you can tour the picturesque Gothic campus of the University of Chicago. Tickets for the field session “Stewardship of a Grand Campus Legacy: the University of Chicago” must be purchased in advance. For those not interested in the all-day tour, there will be an education session at 1:30 PM on Friday: “Resiliency in University Planning: Risks and Opportunities” asks how prepared are university campuses to resist and recover—in a timely, economical, and efficient way—from disasters, climate change, and natural hazards?

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SCUP Landscape & Planning Award Winners

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The University of British Columbia's pedestrian campus, SCUP Honor Award winner for Landscape Architecture--General Design image: Dean Gregory
The University of British Columbia’s pedestrian campus, SCUP Honor Award winner for Landscape Architecture–General Design
image: Dean Gregory

Congratulations to those landscape architects, teams and campuses that are winners in the 2014 Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) Campus Awards Program in the Landscape Design and Planning categories. The goal of the program, started in 2001, is to recognize excellence in higher education and its resultant physical environment. In 2013, there was a slight uptick in the number of submissions under the planning (20) and landscape (19) categories. This year, there were 22 submissions under the planning category and only 14 submissions in the landscape category.

The 2015 Call for SCUP Excellence Award Entries will open October 1, 2014. I encourage all of you to start thinking about which landscape and planning projects you’re going to submit for the 2015 program.

In the meantime, following is a list of the 2014 SCUP award winners in the four categories of Landscape and Planning.

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Animating the Campus Landscape

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Pop Rocks on Koerner Plaza, the University of British Columbia image: Dean Gregory
Pop Rocks on Koerner Plaza, the University of British Columbia
image: Dean Gregory

Earlier this year, the office where I have worked for 5 years—Campus and Community Planning—was restructured to include a new division called Campus Programs and Animation. This group of people is responsible for supporting the University of British Columbia’s strategic priority of making our Vancouver campus more vibrant. My first reaction was “Hmmm—I thought we (the landscape architects) were doing that!”

We absolutely are doing that—creating the spaces and landscapes that are essential to a vibrant campus. But we don’t do it alone. Making the campus more vibrant involves leveraging public space, campus landscape and infrastructure investments with cultural and social assets to develop strong community programs and create extraordinary campus experiences. Real success requires a concerted effort by many individuals. With the goal of creating unforgettable and extraordinary campus experiences, landscape architects do create the platform and unique opportunities for meaningful intellectual, social, and cultural experiences and interactions. The design and programming contributions of other professionals, staff and the users themselves help us fulfill this goal.

Following are a few images—and a really fun video clip—showing the fruits of those efforts here at the University of British Columbia.

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UBC Campus Landscape Architect

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The Main Mall at the University of British Columbia image: Dean Gregory
The Main Mall at the University of British Columbia
image: Dean Gregory

This article is republished from the February 2013 Sitelines newsletter, published by the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects. The original version of this article can be found in the Sitelines archive.

Perhaps it is just the passing of 20 years but I don’t have much recollection of the campus where I got my degree in landscape architecture. I have happy memories of plant identification tours around the University of Guelph campus with Professor Lumis – but not any strong memories of what it looked like or felt like. This contrasts with my fond memories of the University of Toronto campus where I received my undergraduate degree – its ivy-covered buildings, the broad lawn of King’s College Circle and the quad at University College to name just a few. My recollection of the important role that the campus landscape played in creating positive and memorable experiences now helps inform my role as Campus Landscape Architect for the University of British Columbia.

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