Why a new campus plan?
In 1904, when much of The Johns Hopkins University was still at its temporary initial location at Howard and Eutaw streets in downtown Baltimore, architects Parker and Thomas won a five-firm competition to plot the development of the recently acquired Homewood campus several miles to the north.
With revisions a few years later, the Parker/Thomas plan--a circular driveway leading from Charles Street to a square quadrangle, and a second, longer quad to the south--has guided development at Homewood ever since. The university's adherence to the Parker/Thomas vision has left generations of students, faculty and staff a treasure of a campus, a tree-lined enclave within an urban setting.
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| Adaptation of Parker Thomas & Rice Plan |
But nearly 100 years later, with that two-quad campus core long complete and the total campus larger than 2 million square feet, the university is building or planning new buildings on the western, northern and eastern perimeters of Homewood.
Student housing, student services and administrative offices have spilled across Charles Street into Charles Village. Parking and traffic circulation vehicular and pedestrian are concerns. So is preservation of the traditional "Georgian" feel of the campus even as the university seeks to provide students and faculty with the most modern facilities for learning and research.
New development, if not approached with the greatest of care and forethought, can lead to unintended, and potentially ugly, outcomes. Witness the fact that the student arts center already under construction south of Eisenhower Library will create a lovely gateway from Charles Street onto campus and right to the Eisenhower Library loading dock.
To prevent--or even remedy--unintended consequences of that nature, President William R. Brody, Provost Steven Knapp, Senior Vice President James McGill and the Homewood campus deans having agreed that a new master plan, guiding development for perhaps as long as the next 100 years, is essential .
The university has engaged Ayers/Saint/Gross, a Baltimore-based architecture firm., to lead a year-long planning process. Scheduled for completion by May 2000, the process will involve discussions and consultation with literally hundreds of Hopkins people -- from the president to members of the incoming class of 2003 -- and with representatives of the university's neighbor communities.
The result will be "A Physical Plan for Homewood Campus" that will address not only the location and design of buildings, but also and just as importantly the spaces among them, natural or developed, tree-shaded or brick-lined, recreational or utilitarian.
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