In January, designers will begin working on a new comprehensive master plan to redevelop the physical and strategic design of the LSU campus. Components of the master plan include smaller parking, infrastructure, dining and space and classroom utilization plans.
NBBJ, a planning and design firm headquartered in Seattle, is finalizing its contract with LSU to partner with the university on the 18-month-long project, which the university’s finance and administration services will fund.
The university created the initial master plan in 2003.
Tammy Millican, Facility Services assistant director, said an average master plan is useful for roughly 10 years before it requires updates. Comprehensiveness and a strategic approach are what separates the new master plan from the original.
“We will be looking at where buildings are located and planning for future development,” Millican said. “For instance, the College of Science is located in 17 buildings, so naturally, we want to defragment them and bring them together. As the pedagogies of teaching change, we need to allow the space for professors to be able to adapt to that change.”
Millican said Facility Services, the University Planning Council, Facilities Design and Development and several other departments started considering an updated master plan in 2014, when they began assessment and data collection.
She said one of the main goals the university has in its planning period is to exercise transparency to students, faculty and staff, which is why she and Roger Husser, director of Planning, Design and Construction for Facility Services, along with other project members from NBBJ and Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, will allow the campus community’s feedback to drive the vision for the main plan.
Collette Creppell, principal and director of Urban Strategies at Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, said EDR is excited to work on the LSU master plan and will work closely alongside NBBJ as the local support team on the project. For her team members, Louisiana higher education planning is not unfamiliar territory, as they have each conducted master planning previously at either Tulane University or the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
“There’s some really good foundational work that we are building on,” Creppell said. “We are really excited to have been given this opportunity.”
Project managers and the NBBJ master planners will reference the 2003 plan, which Sasaki Associates Inc. executed, for construction ideas and decision-making regarding funding resources and capital outlay, according to Millican. The firm will also consider a series of university recommendations when completing the plan.
“We want a master plan that everyone will embrace, and I think we will have a great consensus on the end product,” Millican said.
Husser said the 2003 master plan that he worked on has so far been used as a framework for him and his planning team.
“Needs adjust and things change almost immediately, so this comprehensive master plan — as was the 2003 one — will be a living document for us moving forward, as it’s intended to be,” Husser said.
Millican said one of the plan’s primary initiatives will assess and improve campus mobility. Creating classroom spaces for interactive learning and research and efficiency in resource consumption will be other components of the plan.
“You won’t see everything immediately,” Millican said. “The exploration of all of this is just beginning now, so it’ll be exciting to see the final plan once we determine it.”
Aside from creating the project effort, Husser said he will oversee the communication and engagement plan. He hopes to involve as many of the 33,000 stakeholders on campus and other external groups as he can through social media, forums, focus groups and town hall-like meetings.
“I think LSU is paving the way and setting the standard in some way,” Husser said. “This is about as comprehensive and strategic as has occurred at hardly any other university, and the fact that we’ve established the structure and been engaged on developing the assessment and data tools for over a year now is very unique. I’d like to think we are very prepared.”