URBAN DESIGN FRAMEWORK The University of Liverpool - Urbed

University of Liverpool: UDF1:2 - The University ChallengeUniversities operate in an ever changingworld. Staff and students are becoming moredemanding, space requirements are changingand the environment in which they operate isbecoming more competitive. The masterplanmust respond to these challenges.The University’s needs are changing and the way itoperates today is very different from the situation inthe 1940s when the last major masterplan for thecampus was undertaken by Lord Holford. The newmasterplan must respond to these changing needs:The knowledge economy is now central to theeconomic success of cities so that universitiesneed to be embedded in the economy of the city.Student numbers have increased from lessthan 5% of young people in the 1940s to acurrent target of 50%. The size of coursesand the number of students on campus hasincreased hugely since the 1980s although thishas now levelled off.Overseas students are crucial to the academiclife and finances of the University and thecampus needs to be attractive to them.There are far more universities than thereused to be. Students are attracted to the brightlights of cities like Liverpool but parents remainconcerned about safety and crime. The campustherefore needs to provide a safe environment.Course types are evolving with the expansionof vocational courses and an increasingdiversity of learning and teaching formatsincluding full and part-time courses, distancelearning and use of on-line delivery.University finance depends on researchratings and this depends on attracting the bestacademics. The campus must therefore be agood place to work.There is increasing concern about theenvironment and universities are expected totake the lead in carbon reduction strategies.Initiatives like Harvard’s Green Campus showhow this can project a positive image.Universities rely on conferences and otheractivities to generate revenue. This requiresmodern conference venues as well asaccommodation, catering and parkingprovision.Technology is changing rapidly; in the lastdecade universities installed rooms full ofcomputers for students. However, with theavailability of affordable, portable computingstudents are increasing flexible in where andhow they can work.Tuition fees are helping to fund improvedaccommodation but have also changed therelationship between students and universitieswith the former acting more like customersand the latter increasingly eager to impress.All of this means that universities need to makesure that their buildings and the environmentson their campus are memorable and welcoming.People’s expectations of their university arebecoming more aspirational. Estates strategies areno longer just pragmatic, functional programmesto house the University’s activities but are nowcrucial to the success of their institution.These issues are also being addressed byAmerican Universities. As part of this the not-forprofitorganisation ‘Project for Public Spaces’ (whoworked with URBED in the 1980s) have set out sixobjectives that a good university campus shouldaspire to achieve. These provide a good foundationfor the Liverpool University Masterplan:1. Bring people and ideas togetherThe boundaries between disciplines are breakingdown. In today’s institution, the managementschool, for example needs to interact with theteaching hospital, the linguists with the scientists.Students also need to interact with each other andin turn the entire University needs to interact withthe broader city and community.Such encounters help generate new ideas, thevery currency of the knowledge economy. Thecampus needs to be designed to create spacefor these interactions. For all of the importanceof virtual worlds, face-to-face communicationremains vital and the campus needs to includelively inviting public spaces to encourageinteraction.