Part 5: Final Recommendation - SUNY Cobleskill

C
CAMPUS
PLANNING
SUNY Cobleskill Facilities Master Plan – Phase 5 Report
November 2011
as financial, enrollment, and faculty number concerns that can vary
significantly from year to year) and are fraught with challenges when
applied across a multi-building campus study. As such the following table
provides a goal that can be met in many different ways, through physical
adjustment, changed furnishings, and operational measures. The easiest
possibility is simply removing desks from a classroom to provide larger
station sizes and fewer stations. Vigilance is required of the Fund and the
College on an initiative-by-initiative basis to meet right-sizing goals.
Table C1
Existing
Right Sized
Capacity # Rooms # Seats # Rooms # Seats
≤ 20 1 19 7 138
≤ 30 8 229 10 245
≤ 40 10 372 4 125
≤ 50 4 192 2 86
≤ 60 3 175 2 113
≤ 70 0 0 1 70
≤ 100 0 0 2 156
≤ 150 2 227 0 0
Avg SUR
% 80%
Standard
28 1,214 28 933
72% Avg SUR
% 80%
Standard
88%
Informal Instructional Environments – Libraries & Learning Commons
The aforementioned paradigm shift has impacted libraries as much as
the Internet, but it poses a question: Do libraries simply physically shrink
in response to digitization, or do they shift their mission toward teaching
media literacy and finding new entrepreneurial ways of attracting and
empowering students and communities?
Van Wagenen Library has been successful in incorporating several limited
informal learning environments and a variety of individual and group
seating arrangements, all of which are utilized by students. Both the
electronic and print collections have been continually renewed to ensure
that resources are relevant and up-to-date, and antiquated technology,
such as microfiche readers, are being removed. Yet Van Wagenen has not
fully taken advantage of the transition to a Learning Commons. Recent
investments in the Library facility have primed the College to make this
leap.
Additionally, the Phase 3 report identified a significant deficiency of space
associated with the Library. Little space remains in the current Library
facility and program will need to be both relocated and the model of a
distributed library and learning commons pursued.
Informal Instructional Environments – Food Service & Activities Areas
Less tangibly, food service and circulation environments are changing
just as much as Library space, though their direction and clear built
precedents remain a rapidly evolving target. The varied Campus Auxiliary
Services and Association across the State (in conjunction with SUCF) have
done an excellent job in refreshing food service venues across the system,
but SUNY Cobleskill has yet to significantly benefit from this trend. While
students report a high degree of satisfaction with food options on campus,
the trend toward branded and contemporized venues is difficult to avoid.
Contemporization provides the College with the opportunity to make the
link between learning, food, and socializing more explicit.
Understanding the degree to which food, socializing, and learning
are interrelated changes the expectations of such spaces. By aligning
spaces with those expectations, food becomes a natural focal point and
supporting element in group learning. An obvious and much-repeated
model is that of the big-box book retailers and their in-house cafes.
The “study commons” combined with food service is natural, though it
does lead to operating questions such as concerns of mixing food with
expensive computers, as well as how the space is staffed and by whom.
The FMP recommends food service needs be met with refreshed food
service options that move toward the integration of “study commons” with
enhanced dining venues that offer traditional light café fare, premium
coffee choices, and a sit-down venues that offer diverse cuisine choices.
Informal Instructional Environments – Connective Spaces
The expectation of connective spaces, typified by circulation space, has
also undergone a significant shift. Higher education facility planning
now seeks to foster and harness the power of chance encounters and
conversations—and no space better supports spontaneous collaboration
than connecting space. Corridors and stairs are no longer simply to
move people and goods from one point to another, but are actively
part of the learning spectrum. Conversations that start in the classroom
should continue into the hallway, and that hallway should be designed to
encourage conversation as opposed to yielding to an over-bearing need
for space efficiency.
The FMP recommends that campus-wide educational and activities
programming examine opportunities to maximize connective spaces.
Examples include:
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Non-parallel walls to encourage conversations that do not block
movement
Convenience seating at intersections, particularly immediately
outside general classrooms
Extensive glazing and borrowed light to increase visual connection
between programmed space and circulation
Convenience (non-egress) stairs
Informal Instructional Environments – Open Space & Landscape
Similar to interior connective spaces, campus open space is also an
informal instruction environment. While outdoor classes are a nice
option, and some softscape and hardscape space should be provided
for them, they are not expected to be more than a nuance that happens
during particular nice autumn and spring days. There are many ways,
however, that open space can function as informal instructional space
—particularly when it is coordinated with interior environments and
academic curriculum.
The FMP recommends the coordination of campus landscape to
provide:
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•
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Expanded individual and group study spaces such as small
seating groups
Outdoor instructional space (coordinated with indoor
programming if possible)
Outdoor seating connected to study commons
The strengthening of pedestrian routes to increase chance
encounters
Provisions for conversation spots along pedestrian routes
Planting and landscape as an instructional tool, with particular
regard to native vegetation and sustainable maintenance and
operations
Informal Instructional Environments – Residential Environments
The expectations of College residential facilities have gone significant
changes over the last few decades, having gone from mid-century
cellular communal housing to full-service suite environments, and back to
communal housing again. Much of this shifting was and still is influenced
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