The Cavalier daily :: Wednesday, December 15, 1971 :: University of Virginia Library

(47) Now comes a question of arrangement. Do you want
one community of 2000-3000, or do you want five or six
clusters of 500-600 each? I would like to premise the former,
chiefly because I cannot think of compelling reasons for
fragmenting the group. You can segregate people on an
arbitrary or random basis; you can urge preexisting groups or
cliques to live together; you can organize people on the basis
of academic specialization. None of these procedures
particularly warms me; nor does a figure of 500 or 600 carry
any special attraction. Nonetheless, there is no point in being
adamant at this stage. I merely proceed from here with the
assumption that the image of a small intellectual town or polis
of a couple of thousand people is worth considering. As I
describe a possible version, perhaps the assumption will be
somewhat validated.

(48) But first, why not organize on the basis of
specialization, as UC Santa Cruz is doing, for example? Cowell
College is for humanities, Stevenson for social sciences, and
Crown for natural sciences. When people live together who
already share a certain academic interest, is this not going to
produce the ideal atmosphere of intellectual excitement that
we want? I would hope so—particularly as a student at Santa
Cruz attaches himself to a college for a full four years (though
with ample chance to take courses in other colleges). But we at
Virginia are not faced with the situation of creating a whole
new campus from scratch for 26,000 people, as is the case at
Santa Cruz. We already have facilities said to be adequate for
at least 15,000 and perhaps 18,000 students, and we are not
planning to abandon these facilities. Our task is to create a
supplement or alternative for perhaps 3000. Unless we
reorganize the whole University, it does not appear sensible to
organize Birdwood by disciplines. You might, for example,
think of placing a strong school of government and public
service there, but meanwhile we already have a strong
department of government and foreign affairs on the Grounds.
A college of fine arts or performing arts might be proposed to
fill a gap at the University, but meanwhile our building plans
call for a fine arts complex adjacent to Campbell Hall.
Common sense and financial constraints argue against these
various duplications.

(49) Furthermore (a perhaps damaging blow to neat
abstract theorizing), it is not at all certain that at the
undergraduate level intellectual excitement does in fact
increase when you create living-learning enclaves of social
science majors apart from fine arts people, ecologists pulled
off from literary scholars, and so forth. It may well be that
Santa Cruz has picked up on the end of a trend which
originated with Sputnik in 1956: that strong emphasis on
hard-nosed, intense specialization in certain standard
disciplines, with the goal being production of skilled experts to
keep America competitive. High schools added calculus so
Johnny could leap directly into his physics major at college.

(50) Now, however, we are McLuhanized, Ehrlichized and
Tofflerized. We are residents of a "global village" or an
"ecosystem" confronted with an infinity of "alternative
futures" to invent. Everything is inextricably related to
everything else, and while we still need batteries of experts or
technicians, we are now being told to train ourselves to be
systems analysts— grand synthesizers rather than doctrinaire
inquisitors. The establishment of our own University Major
and the enthusiastic response to it is indication that this trend
is alive at Virginia. Indications are that this trend will be
gaining momentum in the foreseeable future and that
traditional departments, disciplines, and branches of
knowledge are going to be less viable than they have been.
Motivation for our students at Birdwood, children of this
Zeitgeist, is likely to be enhanced if we encourage an
intellectual mix rather than a separation.

(51) Within this mix, then, would it still not be a good idea
to sort students out at random into clusters of, say, 500
students, in order to foster the getting-to-know-you which we
have claimed to be important? It may be a good idea; all I
know is that right now a "town" idea appeals to me more than
the idea of five or six little "villages." I'm fearful, I guess, that
a body of 500 students is just a bit too confining. True,
they're together for only a short year, which is certainly not
enough time fully to get to know each other. Yet I foresee
difficulties for such organizations as a serious chess circle, jug
band, diet club, Sunday dawn hiking gang, poetry magazine,
and so forth, if there are only 500 people to draw from.
Separation by academic interest is likely to lead to geographic
dispersal as well—one college on a hill, one in a valley, one in
the woods, another by a lake.. The consequence is that for
those poets and chess freaks who want to transcend the
imposed apartheid a long discouraging trek is involved. Some
of those colleges at Santa Cruz, for example (650 students
each) are a formidable distance apart, up hill and down dale by
foot.

Compartments In Buildings
And Minds

(52) Most of us probably view traditional master-planning
as an attempt to find out what everybody wants and what
they think they'll want ten years from now, and then match
up these wants against the financial constraints and come up
with a compromise that pleases nobody. Thus we get
"compromise buildings," because our desires are always too
great and the money is always too little. At the same time
these compromise buildings get us in dutch with the
Commonwealth authorities because we use them only a few
hours a day. A Classroom can never be a Lounge or a Tutorial
Center or a Snack Bar or an Editorial Room or a Child Care
Center or a Broadcasting Studio or a Film Theater. We operate
on an either-or mentality; we are fleshy binary computers. One
consequence of this mind-set is that we enter a Theater
thinking only "Entertain me," an Art Gallery thinking only
"Culture me," A Faculty Office thinking "Fake him out," and a
Classroom saying in muttered panic, "Omygod Mymind
hasgonenumb." We do not live life; we play roles and move in
diagrams.

(53) The point of this tirade is to re-introduce an earlier
topic but by a different name. I have mentioned
"multi-purpose" facilities as desirable; let me here subsume
them under the more general heading of "contingency
planning" and relate the notion specifically to the matter of
whether 3000 in one "town" is best or 500 in six colleges. I
am not yet convinced, that is, that one or the other is
absolutely preferable, now or in the future. Is it possible to
allow for both—to allow for both, as opposed to planning
inflexibly for one or the other?

Photo By Lovelace Cook

Concept Of "Focus" Introduced

(54) To put it another way, can you design an academic
setting that will be "town" in emphasis but at the same time
allow for "neighborhoods" to develop if and when the need is
felt? My feeling is that you can, and that the way to do it is to
devise your town with a definite central focus—the astounding
and gargantuan red brick Victorian courthouse in my Indiana
home town is the image that runs into my mind. But then also
allow for a number of secondary focuses.

(55) Now remove that courthouse at once. Some towering
and sprawling building is the last thing we need at Birdwood,
where we ought to be cooperating with the terrain rather than
annihilating it. How, in fact, would you choose the central
building anyway? Your library at best will be small, and any
other building (gym, theater, cafeteria) is likely to be small as
well and give undue emphasis to one of the fragments of life
that we are trying to incorporate as a whole, if chosen as a
central focus. Recognizing that a little lake is rather nicely
situated in the rough center of the flattish part of Birdwood,
might it not be logical to go along with the perception of one
of the University planners and designate this as an appropriate
focus?

Purpose Of A Plaza

(56) Provided we join it to some sort of open plaza large
enough for a gathering of the entire town population (3000
students plus faculty and staff). I am somewhat influenced
here not by the old "convocation" tradition of universities in
bygone days but by the use of our own Lawn for mass
meetings during the week of Cambodia and Kent State in May
of 1970. Here was a period of genuine "community" in the
sense that differences in age, dress, experience, and authority
were for the time being subordinated to mutual concern on a
given issue, in a physical space at once attractive and large
enough to accommodate entertainment, business, dialogue,
and miscellaneous other activities in easy reach of each other.
Then came the basketball season of 1970-71, and we felt
another sort of community spirit under the roof of University
Hall.

(57) In short, I think you need one central space large
enough for the infrequent occasions when a community
convocation may be necessary. But you should not have that
plaza for mass meetings only. It should be a hub of permanent
activity. Mr. Jefferson long ago understood this, with his
concept of an "academical village" centered on the Lawn and
focused at the library (Rotunda). Gradually, however, the
University has been forced by growth to retreat from the
Lawn, leaving it now not much more than a soothing balm to
the eyes and a major tourist asset where visitors are safe from
the molestations of throngs. It is in no respect an actual center
for anything (not even a map of the Grounds); the University
in fact has no focus anywhere. Hence the recent but thus far
inconclusive talk about somehow redesigning the
Newcomb-Peabody-Alderman area into an integrated and
lively area for student activities.

(58) The lesson in all this is that the plaza at Birdwood,
large enough for 3000 sitting bodies (4000 for good measure),
should also be multi-purpose. It should be not only a center
and a focus but also an inevitable passageway for a great many
people on their way to a great many destinations, and a
destination itself. This is how you go about getting your
desired "mix" of students out of the realm of the theoretical
and into the actual. The notion is far from original. European
market squares, New England village greens, Indiana
courthouse squares, certain well-designed shopping centers
(not Barracks Road!)—the list is infinite, and the image evoked
by each is highly positive. Nor is it anachronistic; I would call
attention to the new campus of Simon Fraser University in
Vancouver, with its covered outdoor central plaza linking
library, theater, underground parking garage, student center,
and classroom-office complex.

The Amenities Of A Plaza

(59) A plaza need not and probably should not be a formal
geometric affair—a square, a rectangle, a circle, a perfect
kidney. Going by our principle of difference from the main
Grounds, it cannot be. If the shore of the lake gives it one of
its sides, we are still left with the matter of defining the rest of
it. A "center" or "plaza" needs some defining boundary, even
if vague, lest it leak space and turn into nothing distinct after
all. There will be certain facilities for a campus of 3000 people
that inherently are destinations: cafeteria or restaurant, the
little library, some kind of indoor physical activity space, some
room large enough for films-plays-dances-concerts-lectures,
perhaps a print shop and/or radio studio. It would seem
sensible to space these facilities rather informally about the
periphery of our plaza as inducements for the mix of people
we wish to encourage.

(60) Going by our principle of openness, it is easy to
conceive of ways to make these structures more than usually
enticing, so that our passer-by is seduced into stopping and
perhaps becoming for the time being a part of a little crowd
gathered here and there. Perhaps our food building could have
a glassed-in cafe fronting on the plaza (projecting onto it,
even), with tables and umbrellas outside in decent weather.
Our theater could have a small free-standing platform out
front or else a small thrust stage projecting from the building
proper, for noontime plays (Canterbury Cathedral uses its
steps for this). Our library could have a carpeted and
brightly-furnished "new book" and periodicals room with
window walls fronting on the plaza. The student affairs rooms
might be spaced along a covered connecting walk between
these buildings and be equipped with large windows so that
passers-by could see a disk jockey on the air (as at WELK on
Main Street), a jazz combo in rehearsal, a meeting of the
College Council in progress, an edition of the campus
newsletter being assembled.

The Dynamics Of A Plaza

(61) Conceivably you could arrange things so that windows
could look into the cafeteria kitchen, onto an attractive
internal staircase in a building, a billiard room, a swimming
pool, and any number of other rooms or places where motion
and activity are taking place. This, then, is our plaza, our
campus center, and its periphery of destination-type
buildings—a voyeur's delight! Add benches, kiosks, and
clusters of shade trees, for comfort, color, and softening.

(62) In talking about a periphery of destination-buildings
connected by a covered passageway (yes, there is a similarity
to the Lawn part of Mr. Jefferson's long-outgrown plan). I am
not proposing an unbroken ring of buildings. We do want some
space to leak out, to open onto grass and trees. It is, in fact,
for the sake of contrast to our concrete (or
concrete-and-gravel) plaza that a softening ring of woods and
grass might well surround the backs of our plaza-fronting
buildings, making for a pleasant passage to an outer ring of
buildings which could be primarily student and faculty rooms
and places for classes.

(63) These rooms, all with exterior entrances, could be
organized in some six or seven rambling structures running up
and down the contours of the land. I picture the use of
modular units after the manner of Moshe Safdie and see in my
mind's eye a low-rise, dense skyline partaking of his Habitat
effect (Expo 67). Covered terraces and walk ways at the second
and third-story levels, as in Safdie's scheme, could conceivably
link all the buildings together so that a person could make a
walking circuit of the campus at several levels, not only passing
by many different residence rooms but avoiding a tiresome
routine of down-three-flights, across-the-lawn, and
up-two-flights to class. If then each of these six or seven
complexes had at its farthest point from the main central plaza
its own multi-use lounge type room, each such room would
serve as one of the secondary focuses I earlier alluded to.

The Maximum Use Of Space

(64) Let these lounges be flexibly furnished with enough
chairs and cushions and pillows so as to be serviceable for
classes two or three hours in the morning and again in the
afternoon; let there be adjacent to each of these lounges a
small kitchen and dining room specializing in some unique
menu available nowhere else on the campus (pizza in one,
Lupo-type sandwiches in one, eggs and pancakes in another);
let there be film projection equipment and PA equipment in
each of them, available for meetings and programs. In short,
since a few decentralized lounges and snack places will be
needed anyway, locate and furnish these such that everything
will be ready in case a sense of "neighborhood" seems to want
to develop at various places in our campus. Possibly a cluster
of students and faculty will gather at the pizza place on
Tuesday night as a regular thing, for supper and discussion.
Anther group clusters over pancakes Sunday noon to exchange
the New York Times. A cell of Marxists (tendency Groucho)
gathers late Thursday evening to see old time flicks and munch
Dagwood sandwiches. These little groups would very likely be
organized by people in the rooms near the respective lounges
(hence the fostering of "neighborhood" feeling), but it isn't
likely that a sense of exclusiveness would prevail.

(65) The food emphasis, by the way, seems frivolous, but
the premise is that this will be an important way of fostering
contentment in the relative isolation of Birdwood. I myself see
nothing really attractive in the traditional residential college
concept of "all coming together under one roof for meals
three times a day." But then I've never experienced it. I do
know that variety in menu is pretty important to people in our
day, as well as variety in atmosphere. Even if you couldn't
afford to keep them open seven days a week, three meals a day
(with extended evening hours), the separate little dining spots
would do a great deal to maintain student and faculty
satisfaction. It's one thing to be able to say, "I'm in the mood
to stroll through the plaza and end up at the pancake place for
a chocolate waffle." It's quite another thing to have to say
night after night, "Aaaagh! Wonder what's at the old cafeteria
this time."

(66) All right. So much for a small vision of what might be
worth thinking about in terms of a total design concept and
also a few of the integral components. Suppose we consider
briefly a few other small touches that might well appear to be
trivial and "cosmetic" but which it seems to me should be
thought about and considered as further integral parts of our
whole campus. These are the kinds of things that fall halfway
between policies and potential traditions and have their chief
justification in need.

(67) There will be a need for some minimal core library, if
only to serve the courses taught, without any pretense at