The final four design firms in competition to update LSU’s comprehensive Master Plan made public presentations Wednesday and Thursday proposing strategies to address the plan’s goals, including building use and transportation.
The 2003 master plan, an ongoing project encompassing the entire campus, serves as the framework for campus growth over the next 50 years. However, the plan was moving faster than expected, said Director of Planning, Design and Construction of Facility Services Roger Husser.
An update is needed to “progress in a more strategic fashion to meet the academic mission and priority needs of the university,” according to a news release from the Division of Strategic Communications.
“We’ve developed more in the last twelve years than we thought we would back in 2003 when we developed the plan,” Husser said.
The update to the master plan will need to outline a plan for campus growth over the next five to 10 years, Husser said.
Some of the most recent steps in the master plan are the renovations and additions to Patrick F. Taylor Hall, which is projected to be finished by December 2017.
Master-planning firms across the country submitted proposals which were reviewed by the Master Plan Working Committee and Sub-Committee in July. Four finalists were selected: Perkins+Will, Sasaki, NBBJ and Cannon Design.
The committees — made up of representatives from Staff Senate, Faculty Senate and Facility Planning, as well as the university architect and additional faculty members — are expected to reach a decision by the end of next week, although it could take longer, Husser said.
“We’re primarily looking for a group that has the most well-rounded team,” Husser said.
Facility services will work with the selected firm for a few months to define the scope of their project before actually starting on the update. Husser predicts the firm will start working on the update around Christmas, and said it will be an 18-month process until completion.
Dennis Brandon, the Principal in Charge of the NBBJ team, said that its goal is to align the framework of the master plan with LSU President F. King Alexander’s hopes for the university.
“Vision and reality become one,” Brandon said.
Bradley Lukanic, the academic strategist of Cannon Design, said he looks forward to working at LSU if his team is selected.
“I think what’s interesting to me is the energy and enthusiasm about this place and how people describe it and talk about it,” Lukanic said. “That’s really the exciting part of making a master plan rooted in the LSU community.”

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Nicholas Martino

LSU Comprehensive and Strategic Master Plan Principal in Charge, Dennis Brandon, makes the final presentation on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015, in the Woods Auditorium.