Landscape Design for Higher Education | K&W Philosophy

10 Reasons Good Landscape Design is a MUST HAVE on Campus

  1. The landscape of your building defines a good first impression.
  2. Establishing a standard planting palette helps unite a large campus.
  3. Landscape gives a building a sense of place, belonging and hospitality.
  4. Outdoor landscape design can be used as outdoor classrooms, learning centers, dining areas, study areas and more.
  5. Good campus landscape design and connectivity between facilities is easy to navigate, budget friendly to maintain, and provides an outdoor sense of place for students and faculty.
  6. Green spaces can be designed to foster outdoor activity.
  7. An appealing view from windows of classrooms and offices can raise student and faculty satisfaction.
  8. Landscaping can provide water and energy savings if done correctly with native and drought tolerant plants.
  9. Landscaping can hide unattractive features such as above ground utilities.
  10. Buildings without landscape look unfinished and drab, leaving a ghost town feeling.

Why is landscape at Colleges and Universities Important?

With the changing demographic and evolving student base, having a functional landscape design is essential to the success of a higher education campus. Connectivity, collaborative spaces, activity spaces and even technology are now integral parts of the outdoor built environments at a college or university. Many institutions are using their outdoor spaces for more than just a connection from one building to another. Outdoor classrooms, science gardens, study spaces, sports and activity spaces bring new meaning to landscape architecture for colleges and universities. Adding public art, in the form of sculpture, can create iconic landmarks where students seek out certain pieces to take pictures and connect those images with social media (as mentioned in the seminar at the TCUF Conference 2016 about Texas Tech’s Approach to Increasing On-Campus Housing Participation). Increasing the upperclassman’s participation in university housing “enhances retention and graduation rates.”

The traditional reasons for landscape architecture in campuses:  is to create a sense of place for each building, the ambiance of the outdoor built environment and create active and passive outdoor spaces.

What Institutions Are Currently Seeking for Campus Landscape Design

Sustainability, Affordability, Quality, Community and Safety are the key factors we hear college and university facilities administrators requesting for their landscape design.  Below are some explanations and examples of how Kudela & Weinheimer can implement these into a design at your institution.

Sustainability as defined by Dictionary.com is “the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.” At Kudela & Weinheimer this is a practice that is inherent in what we do for most of our clients. You can read more about Kudela & Weinheimer’s philosophy about “Green Design” here, but for now, we will talk about some ways green design can be incorporated into campus design. We will use The Texas A&M Agriculture Headquarters  as an example. This is a sustainable project, seeking LEED Silver certification, where several sustainable landscape systems are used. These systems include native and adaptive vegetation, bioswales, constructed wetlands, rain cisterns/gray water recycling that is used for irrigation and high-quality spray and drip irrigation systems that reduce water usage by up to 50%. The greatest importance of sustainability is the return on investment (ROI) factor; it can greatly reduce the cost burden for large campuses for utilities such as water and electricity. The intangible side of sustainability is the satisfaction that your institution is doing the “right thing” for the earth and providing environmental benefits.

Affordability is exactly what it sounds like, “believed to be within one’s financial means.” Creating a design that will fit within the institution’s budget without breaking the bank; and a design that can be maintained easily without incurring a lot of hassle and extra attention by groundskeepers. Affordability can be gained in more than one place, design fees, construction cost and sustainability. Repurposing and renovating existing outdoor spaces is a big trend currently, which can revitalize a space that has otherwise been unsuccessful or even just worn-down by over use. Taking the time to talk with faculty and staff is a good way to get an understanding of the space to create multifunctional, efficient, outdoor spaces. By providing flexibility and intuitive design, the institution is essentially getting two (or more) spaces for the price of one. Also to be noted, through our private and institutional projects we are acutely familiar with Design/Build practices and with that, the cost and time savings that institutions can gain from this project delivery.

Quality is defined as “high grade; superiority; excellence.” Without question, all design should be of high quality for institutions especially when being used by several hundred, if not thousands, of students, faculty and staff daily. High-quality hardscape and softscape are needed for the longevity of a project. Quality in landscape means reliable, well-made materials from pavers to fabrics, as well as quality in plant material. Plant material is especially important to your landscape. When subgrade plant material is used it often looks poor in the beginning, will not grow well as the project ages and/or it will die early on. Using high-quality materials will cost an institution less money, in the end, being dazzled by the low prices of the substandard materials will only cause headaches and more unforeseen costs later down the road. The unforeseen costs could be replacement materials, labor and maintenance.

"Before" - Corps of Cadets Quad Before Renovation
“Before” – Corps of Cadets Quad Before Renovation

Community is a “social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists.” Campus spaces can be designed to play to certain interests that create community. Kudela & Weinheimer recently completed a project for the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets Quadrangle, commonly referred to as the “Quad,” that brings together the idea of community within the Corps of Cadets. We designed the newly renovated plaza in the Quad that is used for several daily activities. Since 1939 the outdoor space at the “Quad” is where the Corps of Cadets hold their morning physical training, workouts, afternoon marching practice and evening formation occur. So as you can imagine, the space is not only worn from use; it is rooted in history and tradition. There is an importance to restore the rich sense of tradition into this community while improving the quality of the previously over-loved landscape and updating the space for modern amenities. Inclusive in the landscape are historical monuments, memorial walls and fifty 9”-10” caliper trees to preserve an “established” feeling throughout. Furthermore, the pavements are designed to mimic grid patterns of formation. The distinctive hardscape patterns we designed are similar to those seen at the Citadel. Previously, the Corps of Cadets used the sidewalks that traced the interiors of the buildings and the turf between them for their drills, workouts, practices and formations, as you can see how worn-out the areas were (see “before” image). K&W kept the existing entry gates and the original entry plaza and designed the interior to coordinate with the existing tradition-rich details. Some existing statues are relocated to preferred locations, such as “Danger 79er.” Others are left in their traditional place such as the Bugle Stand, which is used to wake the cadets in the morning and it’s where the bugler plays “Taps” in the evening.

Safety is the freedom from the occurrence or risk of injury, danger, or loss.” Safety is always a top concern on college and university campuses. Parents send their children out of the nest for the first time to live away from home, and rest assured safety is an important aspect which parents expect. It is also worth mentioning the liability at stake for the institution. Most of the safety standards have to do with planning and building design, but there are still many things that are taken into consideration for the landscape to offer safety and security. There are several things to consider when evaluating a site for vulnerabilities and factors to acknowledge for design with safety. Attributes such as visibility, lighting, boundaries, approach access and areas for perpetrators to hide and not be seen are conditions in a landscape to be examined for safety. Other site characteristics such as setbacks, vehicular access, adjacent roads and adjacent buildings are also taken into account. Natural features in a landscape can deter entry: ditches, berms, water, fencing, and dense woods – these can all deter vehicles from entry. However, the challenging issue is to not create an oppressive ambiance. Even all measures together cannot prevent the unknown, but when planned well, many safety issues can be averted.

In conclusion, our job as landscape architects is to create a campus “experience” that is recognizable the instant you step onto a campus; an inviting ambiance in the outdoor built environment that will compliment the buildings and create functional outdoor spaces. Kudela & Weinheimer can create a beautiful first impression for recruits and extend your functional space outside of the building with outdoor classrooms, functional gardens, study spaces and physical activity spaces. Landscape design has restorative effects, which is why spaces like healing gardens exist (you can read about the benefits of healing gardens here). When students are exposed to high levels of stress and competitiveness, bringing the same benefits of greenery, plants and water to promote healthy campus life is never a bad idea.

Kudela & Weinheimer is your landscape architecture firm for realistic, affordable, buildable projects.

Registered in 15 states, with offices in Houston and San Antonio, Kudela & Weinheimer works on a myriad of projects throughout the United States. We have been in business for 25 years.