University of Virginia Library

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?