Posts about Campuses

Slide 87 and 89 of the Zoning Commission presentation showing Building 1. Image from AU.

Take, for example, the main dormitory building on Nebraska Avenue, Building 1. In site plans presented to the Zoning Commission, the protrusion containing the stairs and common spaces is to the north of the building, but in the floor plans, those spaces are to the south. I can't tell which is accurate. Frustratingly, nearly all drawings are rendered in a faux-sketch style that fudges important details.

But there is enough content to see that the current design is flawed at a scale below the site. That same building along Nebraska Avenue (#1) runs as an extruded block - a slab - lengthwise against the street, routing pedestrians to the corner crosswalks.

To break up the monotony of the building, the architects jagged the building about halfway. This shift, however, has no relation to the rhythms of the main campus across the road. Instead, the design relates only to the driveway AU is trying to retain from the current parking lot.

Site Plan showing a series of long, continuous slabs and a handful of quasi-classical boxes. Image from AU.

Loosely tied to the streets, the slabs and boxes float in the site plan, generally aligned to each other but without any juxtaposition or inflection. They are only linked together along the southern edge of the campus, where buildings are used to hide students from Westover Place.

Elsewhere, gaps between buildings form simple cuts without any compression or release. Where the odd angles of Buildings 2 and 5 come close, the architects simply sliced off part of Building 5 to keep the distance from wall to wall consistent.

Within the campus, the internal courtyards do not relate too well the buildings that define them, particularly on the interior organization. In the dormitories, the bedrooms line hallways of varying lengths. The circulation and social spaces in each building cross the grain, protruding as glass boxes at arbitrary points. Considering that these volumes mark the dormitories' front doors, it's baffling that they have no relation to one another.

Along the perimeter, the slabs meet the streets unsuccessfully. At the café spot, a slim, continuous canopy is meant to add a human scale to a Starbucks. Instead, the uninterrupted ribbon just heightens the sensation of flatness.

Because the sidewalks are separated by a buffer, there is no experience of approaching the building head on, again exacerbating the flatness. The only relief from the slab is some halting ornamentation thrown around the buildings, and even that is still maddeningly flat.

Nebraska Avenue Elevation. Image from AU.

The aesthetics are modernistic in their slipping proportional relationships, and they're traditionalistic in the formal quotations. However, it has neither the clear proportions of a good modernist building, nor the interconnected part-to-whole relationship of a building of Greco-roman classicism. You can see the design as a series of layers meant to soften the impact of the building: a "contextual" brick facade on a precast one on a glass volume.

The word is overused, but these buildings are pastiches: a jumble of appliqués to a mass designed in a fundamentally different way, like a Soviet housing block lovingly rendered in loose watercolor. None of the wit or polemic of Venturi's paper facades exissts when the only reason to so explicitly drape the building is to make it blend in halfheartedly.

At East Campus, style is window dressing, another kind of buffer against undesired effects. Hiding a poster of Bruce Lee with an errant molding. The students in the dorms seem to understand that the administration does not: that the best style is no style. The best design manifests itself as useful spaces and memorable buildings that stimulate the students as much as the curriculum does.

The design of public and communal spaces is part of the culture of AU, and they embody the values of the university.

American has been successful architecturally in its sustainable design. The school has maintained and grown its campus greenery and a significant arboretum, and has eliminated car traffic from the heart of campus. Hartman-Cox's Business School addition and William McDonough's SIS building are both exemplary in their design for energy use and environmentally friendly materials.

Additionally, the 2011 Plan goes further with its commitment to LEED Gold certification for all of the buildings on east campus and LEED Silver on the main campus buildings. By 2021, this level of sustainability will be standard, if not a necessary. Whether a building still has an endearing affect and whether it works well will remain an asset.

In the end, the main issue may not be the result of poor architects, but of a poor client. In meetings, AU's representatives have not expressed the cultural or political relevance of their building projects. Again and again, the emphasis is that nothing is changing, or at least, no one will notice it. The design reflects this attitude, and East Campus's proposed architecture is an architecture of desperate stasis at the expense of good design.

Computer rendering with trees removed. Image from AU.

As part of a larger strategy for growth and consolidation of its school, American will replace a parking lot with six buildings of two to six stories, including 590 beds, a bookstore, admissions offices, classrooms, administrative spaces, as well as some retail. The benefits for AU have been argued over many times; I'll let AU speak for itself. But the benefits of the expansion to the neighborhood and the city are public business.

The new facilities will bring students out of neighborhoods. Currently, AU undergrads are spread out, with roughly 2,000 of 6,000 living off-campus. Some of those students do so by choice, but AU only has room to house 67% of its students. Many juniors and seniors have to look to the neighborhood for a place to live.

The East Campus would pull students from the neighborhood and the Tenley Campus. Better residential facilities would mean fewer students spread out in the neighborhood, fewer noise disruptions, and less of a demand for vehicular commuting.

That reduction in traffic is no small thing. The new facilities adjacent to the central campus mean fewer trips for students and faculty alike. AU is also reducing the total number of parking spaces on campus, and has promised to expand its existing transportation demand management program. Even so, AU's transportation study found that its users never contributed more than 12% of all traffic during rush hour.

The rest of the vehicles are commuters passing through the Ward Circle area. The three avenues in the area, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Massachusetts currently serve primarily as automobile routes. The new buildings offer the potential to reorient the circle for those who live and work in the area.

Rather than gnarling traffic, as opponents have insisted, the slight uptick in pedestrian activity caused by the new buildings will force drivers to pay better attention to their presence on this urban street. The potential for more stoplights and a redesigned circle opens the opportunity to reduce speeds and dangerous behavior, likewise making the area safer for residents of all ages.

Through commercial frontage and foot traffic, Nebraska Avenue would become a pleasant place for locals to enjoy. Leaving the interior of the campus for students, a commercial perimeter would become another node in the geography of Upper Northwest. It would never become as dense and vibrant as Bethesda, let alone Tenleytown, but as a tertiary urban center, it can merge into the neighborhood.

Finally, the scheme laid out in the university's plan continues to facilitate the economic activity of American and its affiliates, estimated at $415 million. Although academic institutions do not pay taxes for noncommercial properties, the Examiner reported last week that students and faculty bring money and talent to the area when they come to the region's universities. By building on its land efficiently, AU will be making an optimal contribution to the city and enlivening the streetscape through the benefits of density.

There are potential negatives, which AU needs to mitigate. However, in its effort to compromise on objections, AU has layered the new buildings in greenery and minimized certain urban features, compromising potential, while still not satisfying opponents' demands.

For example, a 40' buffer of greenery adjacent to Westover Place feathers the campus into the neighborhood, but it's not good on all four sides. Adding a similar barrier of impenetrable greenery along Nebraska Avenue will separate the campus and retail from the sidewalk. It requires creating a second, separated walkway that will reduce the very urban characteristic of unplanned interactions. It is no small leap to see this buffer as segregating the school from the city.

Nebraska Avenue Buffer.

Worsening the Nebraska Avenue elevation, the most recent plans call for a roadway to be punched through building #1 to the interior campus. A roadway in that place would disrupt the crucial urban space at the sidewalk. Instead, the plans should return to the right-in, right-out entrance on Massachusetts Avenue presented in the March 18th Final Plan. This is similar to the one at Westover Place, the Berkshire, and other nearby driveways.

At the least, the university could build on their plans for the Mary Graydon Tunnel and design the proposed road as a woonerf, prioritizing pedestrians in a roadway that runs through what is the students' front yard.

Woonerf in Victoria, BC. Photo by Dylan Passmore on Flickr.

Likewise, AU should not be advocating for a new actuated signal on Nebraska Avenue. Instead, it should build timed signals that guarantee AU students the opportunity to cross as frequently and in rhythm with the city's traffic.

A new stoplight, combined with the recommended changes to Ward Circle, would make the area safer than any phystical barrier by limiting the incentive to jaywalk. If a physical deterrent is necessary, planters between the street and the sidewalk should be sufficient, as at Bethesda Row.

Finally, the project should serve as a catalyst for alternative transportation in the area. Bike lanes on New Mexico Avenue would mean better safety and better quality of life for students and neighbors alike. On campus, the administration already promotes a progressive Transport Demand Management plan, with dedicated ZipCar spaces, Capitol Bikeshare, carpooling assistance, shuttles, and SmartBenefits. But without adequate facilities, the full benefits of cycling and bus transit will not be realized.

Smart Growth refers to planning that is appropriate not only at the local level, but across multiple scales: architectural, local, metropolitan, and regional. AU's expansion plan, which would consolidate students, tame traffic, and create a new node of community, works at the larger three scales. Where it fails is in the way that it addresses the street and human scale, compromising enormous potential for solutions that will please no one and will require remediation in the future.

The Zoning commission should endorse AU's 2011 Campus Plan with alterations at the architectural scale.

Freshmen should not be forced to live in 170-square-feet triples while paying for some of the most expensive University housing in the country. Reducing enrollment by nearly 25 percent would represent a huge blow to the University's already constrained financial resources. These losses could lead to layoffs at the District's largest private employer.

Additionally, requiring all students to live on-campus would reduce the vibrancy and diversity of the already fairly staid surrounding community. Students live off-campus so that they can assert their independence and learn what it is like to live on their own. This arrangement, which furthers student ties to their community, should be encouraged, especially by a city hoping to expand its tax base.

Fortunately, the OP seems to recognize that their recommendations are not the only way forward. At the May 12 Zoning Commission hearing, OP representative Jennifer Steingasser repeatedly said that she was open to other solutions, so long as they brought students back on-campus and mitigated objectionable impacts in the community.

These solutions are possible. Today, Georgetown students spend time off-campus because they are frustrated by a lack of on-campus space that meets their needs. There's no real reason to live close to the center of student life, because there isn't one.

As long that is true, students will continue to socialize in the community and frequent bars on M Street, even if they are barred from living off-campus. A more holistic plan to remedying the objectionable impacts that OP sees is needed. Such a plan, which both recognizes the need to draw students back on-campus and their right to live off-campus, is laid out below.

Increase student space

For years, students have been advocating for more student space on campus. In 1999, a group of student leaders compiled the Report on Student Life, which recommended that the University reorganize Leavey Center and invest in a real student union. Plans for a New South Student Center were included in the 2000 Campus Plan but never came to fruition, and the proposal is again part of the 2010 Campus Plan.

Last year, the Student Space Working Group released a report that found that the same problems still exist a decade later. When surveyed, 64 percent of students said they desired more study space, 56 percent desired more social space, 49 percent desired more space for eating, 41 percent desired more meeting space, and 32 percent desired more student club space. The longer the students had been at Georgetown, and the more involved they were in extracurricular activities, the more frustrated they were with the space available.

What's more, when asked to identify the center of student life on campus, a plurality of students (33 percent) said it was Lauinger Library. This perception demonstrates a core problem. The spaces available do not meet the full variety of student needs, which means students need to use space in a way that conflicts with its intended purpose—for example, we socialize in an area where other people are trying to study—which renders the space ineffective.

As a result, a full 17 percent of those surveyed answered that there was no center of student life at all.

The closest thing we have to a student union—Sellinger Lounge in the Leavey Center—has not become the student-centered space it was envisioned as because of the presence of hotel guests and Georgetown Hospital staff.

If the campus were the real center of student life, more students would choose to live on-campus. The University can and should create spaces and opportunities for a healthy social scene to thrive.

Bring back Healy Pub

Many alumni still wistfully remember Healy Pub, the bar located in the basement of Georgetown's signature building. In 1987, responding to the higher drinking age, the University ordered the pub to shut down. Town-gown struggles began in full-force in the early 1990s, as student social life began to shift to private parties in Burleith and West Georgetown.

Now, a group of students are trying to bring the pub back. Since 2001, the student body has been paying into a Georgetown University Student Association Endowment Fund. The interest from the fund was supposed to finance student activities once the fund reached $10 million by 2011, but the University reneged on its promised $3 million contribution, so the fund has only reached $3.4 million. The student association leaders now consider the endowment a failure and plan to re-appropriate the money. We have $3.4 million to spend, and the Endowment Commission, identifying the same lack of student space we have, voted last month to put $3.23 million towards the pub.

The proposal is to model the pub after Queen's Head Pub at Harvard. On weekend nights, the area would function as a bar. Those under 21 would be allowed to enter, but they would not be allowed to drink. The rest of the time, the space would function as a lounge, where students could meet, socialize, work, eat snacks and reserve private rooms for meetings.

There are obvious obstacles. Once running, the pub will need an alcohol license, which obviously requires support from the Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

Also, the Financial Aid Office and other administrators currently occupy Healy basement, so students need the University's assistance—and blessing—in relocating the people already there to space that will be opened up with the completion of the new science center.

Although the New South Student Center is a necessity and a part of the plan that students welcome, it is not enough. A student-designed, student-run, student-financed space in the heart of Georgetown's historic campus would go a very long way to creating a stronger sense of on-campus community and toward bringing socialization back on-campus.

Reduce on-campus party restrictions

During finals week in 2007, Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson surprised students with the announcement of a new alcohol policy. Administrators had decided to institute a one-keg limit, require host training for parties, require students to register parties by Thursday morning, limit the number of students, and increase sanctions for violations, with a third violation leading to suspension. At the time, the Georgetown Voice termed the changes "draconian."

The following September, the student association president led administrators on a tour through campus on a Saturday night. To their surprise, "There were about eight people standing around [on the rooftops] … and when they moved on to Henle, they could hear crickets in the courtyards." Before, it had been one of the biggest party weekends of the year.

Neighbors complained that they noticed an increase in off-campus parties and student noise. Students expressed fear of throwing parties on-campus, citing the new increased sanctions and party registration requirements.

Now, the dynamic has shifted somewhat. Many students express similar fears of 61-Ds for noise violations or Office of Off-Campus Student Life sanctions for off-campus parties.

Students know that despite their best efforts, parties often take on a life of their own, especially at the beginning of the year when groups of freshmen search high and low for a party to crash. Therefore, students decide to throw their parties on- or off- campus depending on where they perceive they'll attract the least trouble.

If we want students to socialize on-campus, we should consider this constant calculus. To an extent, we can shift the party culture by simply shifting the incentives. As we have seen in the last few years, it's not enough to increase the punishments for out-of-control off-campus parties. We need to also loosen the restrictions on on-campus parties.

Meet all undergrad demand for on-campus housing, starting with hotel and 1789 Block

The University maintains that it has provided housing for all undergraduates who have requested it. However, should the above measures be implemented, more upperclassmen will want to live on-campus so that they can be closer to the center to student activity. This is especially true if the expansion locations are well-integrated with existing student patterns.

Considering the existing campus, the two sites for additional housing that seem most sensible are the Leavey Center hotel and the block bounded by Prospect, N, 36^th, and 37^th, known informally as the "1789 block."

Although the Leavey Center has many flaws as a student center and should ultimately be replaced, it has recently become more student-friendly with the opening of the Hariri Business Building, which connects to Leavey. This trend will continue when the new science center opens in fall 2012 (plans call for the science center to connect to Leavey via open lounge spaces). The addition of student housing to Leavey will help ensure that foot traffic in the building returns to being predominantly student-driven, as opposed to hotel guest- or hospital staff-driven.

The "1789 block" which was once a part of the 2010 Campus Plan, would add up to 250 beds and 8,500 square feet of neighborhood servicing retail in the middle of a university-owned block right outside the university's gates. This project would be within a block of three other university dormitories and two university academic buildings. The "1789 block" would be closer to the front gates than the preexisting Nevils apartment complex and LXR dorm. This space is already a center of student activity, and additional commercial areas so close to campus would entice more students to the area.

The University estimates that these two projects could house approximately 500 undergraduates. This would bring the total number housed on-campus to 5,553, which represents about 92 percent of Georgetown's traditional undergraduate enrollment. This figure compares favorably to every university in Washington and is in line with schools like Harvard, Princeton and MIT, which OP praises in their report as models.

Rate My Landlord

Even if these measures are successful, approximately 8 percent of undergraduates will still have the ability to live off-campus.

However, those students who choose to move out of University housing often pay high rents for low-quality neighborhood housing. Slum landlords regularly fail to maintain their property or respect tenant rights. Students are blamed for the unsightly rental houses, when it is the landlord's responsibility to pay for upkeep.

Theoretically, the Georgetown Office of Off-Campus Life is there to "address the needs and concerns of off campus students." In practice, the office spends as least as much time serving its secondary function: acting "as a liaison between the university and our neighbors, encouraging dialogue about issues of mutual concern."

Lost in the shuffle are the students, who need a stronger advocate in their negotiations with landlords.

One service that would make a big impact would be a "rate my landlord"-type website, where students and other subletters could share information about rental rates, housing quality, upkeep and landlord responsiveness.

Students don't want to live under poor conditions. With more transparent information, students can demand better treatment and drive the slumlords out of business.

The takeaway

In the long run, holistic solutions that aim to improve campus and community life will be far more effective than draconian mandates, which will mire us in legal battles for years to come. We ask that the Zoning Commission, University, and community rethink their approach. The only solutions that can truly address persistent town-gown tensions will be the ones that also take student interests into account.

The university previously agreed to build an additional 250 beds on campus by the fall of 2014. On top of that, by the fall of 2015, OP calls for GU to house 90% of its undergrads in GU housing. By the fall of 2016, the requirement is 100%.

If GU doesn't meet that requirement, OP wants GU's undergrad cap to be cut annually by 25% of the difference between the cap and the number of beds until it meets the 100% mark.

That additional GU housing also can't be built east of 37th Street. That's where the campus gate lies, though the campus boundary is farther east. No housing can be in the 20007 zip code, other than on the campus and behind the gates.

I believe there are about 1,500 GU undergraduates not living in GU housing. That means that after GU adds the 250 that it has already agreed to, it would need to build roughly an additional 1,250 beds by 2016.

GU would have a couple options to satisfy this. First, it could find space for more beds behind the gates. One idea I've heard was to build a dorm on top of Leo dining hall, but I don't know if that is feasible. Second, GU could buy housing for its students outside the 20007 zip code: in other words, in Rosslyn.

All in all, this is a pretty devastating report for GU and I am simply floored by it. But there are still a lot of "ifs." Most critically, while the Zoning Commission is often deferential to the Office of Planning, there's no guarantee they'd go along with this severe a proposal. One factor that is definitely not an "if" is the question of what happens if the Zoning Commission adopts OP's report: years of litigation.

GU appealed the last campus plan decision, and ultimately won. Further, while the courts have rejected various universities' claims that student caps violate the DC Human Rights Act, the court hemmed and hawed a bit before reaching that conclusion. The court might reach a different conclusion if presented with these more severe conditions.

Either way, this is a huge bombshell in this battle, and it fell squarely on GU.

Read the complete report.

The most ridiculous claim is that the very sight of student dorm windows is itself a grave offense that requires action from the zoning code:

Student residences should be built with windows that do not open to limit noise impacts on neighboring residents and with tinted windows that shield from residents' views the type of window hangings that are characteristically found in the windows of AU's student dorms.

Another controversy surrounds the treatment of AU's East Campus site directly south of Ward Circle NW. This site is currently a parking lot and report reasonably requests the university construct a "signature building" on the site.

However, the report contains a series of demands of what should not go on that site, namely students, conferences and retail space.

In fact the report laments "the loss of commercial space and neighborhood-serving retail stemming from AU's need to find more space to meet its needs." Then just 7 pages later, the ANC chastises the university for proposing to add retail space on Nebraska Avenue, noting, "This would be the only block with any retail on Nebraska Avenue throughout its length in Washington, DC."

Which is it? Here the ANC clearly shows a preference for complaining about change over maintaining any intellectual consistency in its review.

Addtionally, while the report rightly agrees that bikesharing will reduce vehicle use, it also resents the incorporation of "the Capital Bike Share [sic] Program—for 10,000 mostly non-taxpaying residents—many of them temporary—living on premium-value residentially zoned property that is producing no property tax revenue".

Though the ANC wants the university to pay the capital cost of each new campus station, which is a reasonable request, it relays the request in a classist, prejudicial way.

Student residents, who often have little or no income, tend to pay little in taxes, but that does not diminish their rights as residents. Furthermore, it's troubling that the ANC resents any class of people "living on premium-value residentially zoned property".

That's what residents do: they reside on residentially-zoned property. The ANC suggests it's upset that a certain kind of people are taking up space on this "premium" property.

Certainly the ANC has a legitimate interest in ameliorating legitimate nuisances, but regulating window dressing should not be the matter of the ANC or the zoning code. Furthermore, the ANC obliterates it own credibility offering contradictory sentiments on the reduction and proposed addition of retail space.

Worst of all, the ANC report relegates AU's students to second-class citizenship, treating them not as fellow residents, but as a nuisance class of people who must be segregated and concentrated into the center of the campus, far from "real" residents.

The ANC should eliminate its thinly veiled opposition to students as a class of people, remove trivial complaints about window dressings, and focus on more important matters: How a university, its students, and long-term residents can exist in harmony and mutual respect.

Housing AU's students poses problems for administrators and locals alike. The university currently has 6,124 undergraduate students, with only half students housed on-campus. The remaining half live in houses and apartment dispersed throughout the surrounding neighborhoods. Even on-campus housing is less than ideal. Students live in cramped triples and in the Berkshire apartment building.

Having students live in the surrounding neighborhoods causes complications and occasional conflicts. Among other things, some students drive to campus. Moving more students into walking distance will save energy, reduce needless traffic, and cut drunk driving. But more importantly, it may help diffuse tensions between locals and students.

AU is offering a variety of housing styles in their new buildings. Suites and apartment style living join most of the social benefits of group houses with the conveniences of dorms. Moreover, with nicer facilities and fewer cramped rooms, students will be even more inclined to live in university housing. Once they have rooms to party in, students have fewer reasons to form off-campus party houses and fewer reasons to negatively impact the neighborhood.

The new beds will benefit the community by themselves. The buildings that contain those beds and the campus surrounding them can also benefit all other residents of the DC area, through good design.

West of Ward Circle, university buildings will flank Nebraska avenue, opening up potential for a remarkable space that extends the original campus onto the new one. Already, he elimination of the ugly parking lots will improve the area. Good design would make it world-class.

With thoughtful space planning and attractive details, the campus can be a joy to inhabit and pleasant for non-students to pass through. It is possible to design to minimize light and noise pollution. As for density, the floor-area-ratio for the whole campus will only increase from 0.5 to 0.8. There will be plenty of park space left over.

Redesigning Nebraska is in the mutual interest of the city and the university. Nebraska connects American's campuses and it connects the school to the city. A boulevardized street with multiple pedestrian crossings, improved bicycle facilities, and a usable Ward Circle would transform Nebraska from a dull arterial to the great avenue planners imagined it would be.

The ANCs, neighborhood groups and the university need to work together to craft a plan that matches American University's needs with a refined implementation that benefits the community. Constructive dialogue, formal commitments, and community benefits will make an acceptable plan into one tat could be a model of academic planning.