Pierce Allston_Campus of the Future_Abstract

The University of Michigan is turning 200 years old, and oh how has the campus grown. From a school once held within a few buildings, to now making up the largest campus footprint of any university in the United States at just under 3,200 acres. Could they have ever imagined educating 45k students? Where will we be in another 200 years? Sitting at currently around 500 major buildings making up the three-part campus, students have to scurry between classes, and even between campuses. Oddly enough, students have adapted “Michigan Time’, where classes don’t start until 10 after, to allot time for students to get between classes. This brings up the question, will the campus of the future be more efficient? Are separate buildings necessary, and how could they be improved?

Efficiency and planning. Within the landscape of Ann Arbor, I’m not sure how many of the faculty in 1817 thought that they would have to cross the Huron River to get to a class. Nor do I think that even in the 1900’s students or faculty would think about the extensive branching out of the campus across the 50 states, or even the international study abroad programs. Utilizing, and realizing the potentials of a futuristic campus of the University of Michigan starts with keeping an open mind. Adjacencies of classrooms and specific “Major” quads are limited to physical space. But, using the seemingly infiniteness of the internet’s ‘Network’, all classes can live right next door. No need to jump on the Bursley-Baits bus at CC-Little to go to the Dude. You can just ‘walk’ next door, in an instant. Keeping an open mind, we must redefine class rooms and even buildings. Rooms are where students congregate to learn a specific lesson plan, and the buildings that house these rooms usually house similarly themed classes, along with supporting professor’s offices. Individual buildings are a network of adjacencies, imagine a campus as one mass of adjacencies.

The campus of the future will serve anyone, and everyone. A roundabout of every discipline, of every age. There is no one who is unable to learn or attend the University of Michigan. Doing so as a single mass, a single classroom, a single building, as a single campus. You could be there physically, or over the internet, like online chatrooms and social networks. Utilizing nesting geometries that are built and connected to the network, students and faculty can travel from space to space as they please in a matter of seconds, not minutes. Classes are just a formal representation of the once desk laden rooms with a blackboard up front. Not all students learn best in lecture format, so why force it? Some students work best meeting one on one, learning hands on, why limit classes to online only? The adjacencies of spaces lead to the adjacencies of learning, of discipline, of students. Architecture’s role is the formalizing of these spaces of learning. No need to limit the campus of the future to a footprint of a city, to a classroom that can only hold 20 students. Education should be available for everyone, and the campus of the future looks to solidify this statement.