Architecture Firm:
Professor Ferd Johns, AIA, NCARB and Asistant Professor Michael Everts, AIA of Montana State University
Completion Date:
2080
Project Format (not yet built / built):
not yet built
Project Size (sf / site acreage):
approximately 900 acres
Project Location:
Bozeman, MT
Budget ($/sq Ft, optional):
NA
Interior Designer:
NA
General Contractor:
NA
Landscape Designer:
NA
Lighting Consultant:
NA
Structural Engineer:
NA
Mechanical Engineer:
NA
Electrical Engineer:
NA
Commissioning Agent:
NA
Civil Engineer:
NA
Other:
See respnse to "Collective Wisdom and Feedback"
Owner:
Montana State University
Sustainable Sites:
Montana State University was founded, in 1893, on principals of land stewardship. It began as a School of Agriculture and evolved into a University of over 100 colleges and departments, extending over 900 acres of the beautiful Gallatin Valley of Montana. The original masterplan for the University was prepared by Cass Gilbert in 1913. However, over the years, the University drifted away from the masterplan’s design principles. Instead, it has become an auto centric campus without a vision for how its responsibility for social and environmental stewardship is to be translated into urban and architectural design.
Our proposed masterplan design refers to the design heritage of the institution by developing a spatial framework of sacred spaces, buildings, vistas and connections as an integral part of a new spatially expressive campus character.
The proposed masterplan does this with several sustainable strategies. First - the existing dominant center-campus surface parking areas will be replaced with an interconnected series of figural open spaces created by new academic-core buildings. Displaced parking will be moved to perimeter garages and remote lots.
Second - the plan will identify and reinforce important visual and physical connections to the powerful Rocky Mountain valley ecology and landscape. This will include the restoration, enhancement and celebration of abused creeks, streams and wetlands so they can once again serve as primary campus amenities and exemplary directions for Montanans. Another strategy is to re-landscape with indigenous grasses, plants and trees to minimize water use. This will be sustained by capturing and storing runoff from roofs, decks, and impervious surfaces; using freeze-proof pervious paving for all new walks and drives; replacing/installing drainage swales (rather than storm sewers) to remove and percolate runoff as necessary.
Bozeman, Montana and the Gallatin Valley have a rich network of wildlife and hiking corridors and community trail systems. We have connected these with the campus through a pedestrian/bike/open space system. To encourage the use of these spaces, the system is designed to accept south sunlight in winter and encourage inside/outside connection in moderate and fair weather.
As mentioned previously, agriculture is important to the region. Currently, the western two-thirds of the campus is devoted to agriculture. However, future development pressures threaten this use. In our proposal, a large section of currently underutilized agricultural land is protected from “incursions of convenience” by the plan, and will be set aside as a major “working” open space amenity serving the entire area, reflecting an important part of Montana’s heritage.
The exemplary sustainable strategies of the masterplan are “open source.” This is accomplished through the creation of porous campus edges melding with the surrounding community, allowing proposed residential and mixed use campus development to reinforce existing and proposed city development patterns.
Toward Zero Energy:
Our proposal introduces a “stealth sustainability” strategy at a conservative Western institution in the process of preparing a long-range campus master plan. It does this in several ways:
1. Convert an automobile-dominated campus to an exemplary walkable environment.
2. Establish future transit systems, bikeways and developed pedestrian ways as primary ordering system for evolving plan.
3. Establish future building configurations, orientation and massing to maximize availability of natural ventilation, daylighting, and winter insolation.
4. Develop maximum densities around existing and future extension of central steam tunnel system for maximum flexibility of choice of future energy sources.
5. The plan proposes stringent new energy-conservation goals for all new construction and major remodeling, and includes general criteria recommending future installation of passive and active solar and wind energy collectors.
Local and Sustainable Materials:
The rural location of the campus makes it even more important than in an urban area, to utilize local and sustainable materials. Our masterplan proposes to:
1. Replace all water intensive landscaping materials with drought-resistant indigenous species.
2. Combine service/emergency drives and pedestrian walkways, emphasizing pedestrian dominance, to reduce redundant paving and enhance pedestrian safety (as demonstrated in Europe and Great Britain by the Intelligent Speed Adaption (ISA)).
3. Use extremely durable materials and systems for building exteriors, consistent with existing campus and regional character (masonry), properly detailed to withstand extremes of Montana climate.
4. Use durable energy efficient windows, doors, roof systems, etc., specifically designed to withstand climatic extremes, yet remain operable year round.
5. Convert to/construct lightweight “green” roofs on large flat roof areas to extend life of roofing membrane and insulation, manage runoff, and reduce heating/cooling loads.
6. Shape all future buildings to allow long-life flexibility and ease of convertibility (width allows for classrooms, dorms, offices, lecture halls, etc.) over time as needs evolve (loose fit).
7. Select/design interior structure/materials and partitions to permit flexibility and future convertibility, as well as mixed use potential (lecture halls and seminar rooms in dorms, dorms and classrooms mixed with student union/commercial spaces, etc).
8. Use recyclable/renewable/reusable materials and systems for interior construction, in anticipation of constant change
Sustainable Water:
Capacity reduction of the natural aquifers is a growing problem in Bozeman. The masterplan proposes to steward a new awareness of the issues and implement sustainable water strategies by:
1. Capture, filter (through swales and vegetative filters) and return runoff to maximize aquifer recharge in a drought-prone climate.
2. Essentially eliminate the current “lawn” irrigation system over time as drought-resistant landscape is established.
3. Concentrate landscape and re-establish/develop wetlands around existing reinvigorated surface water courses.
4. Restore Mandeville Creek to “trout stream” status.
5. Replace old fixtures and install new fixtures to minimize water usage (waterless urinals, vacuum flush toilets, etc.).
6. Snow removal is greatly reduced by dual-use paving design, structured parking replacing surface lots, and a more efficient pedestrian and vehicular circulation system. This allows a more natural distribution of recharge moisture during snowmelt.
IEQ and Comfort:
The campus will evolve from an environment often dominated by surface parking lots into a series of figural open spaces connected by pedestrian paths, bikeways, and transit. This new spatial framework is a natural extension of the design principles employed in Cass Gilbert’s plan for the well-loved original campus core.
A primary role of future campus buildings, other than existing or proposed “landmark” or “focal” structures, will be to define and contain these exterior spaces, which will be designed to extend their “usability” in a northern climate. This is done by exposing the spaces to winter sunlight and carefully selecting and placing trees to moderate the climatic extremes inside and out, and create a pleasant outdoor environment similar to the heavily used Montana Hall Hemicycle and Romney Oval. This concept is extended to the interior through natural ventilation, which is possible and desirable for a good part of the year in Montana, and non-laboratory buildings are to be designed to ventilate naturally without mechanical cooling.
Parking garages located at the perimeter of campus will contain only student or community services/retail at the ground level, and will serve to insulate the campus from road noise and intersect vehicular traffic, with accompanying fumes and noise.
Collective Wisdom and Feedback:
The plan is extraordinary, in that it was prepared in-house, with advice from a single outside consultant, and involved every department and activity on campus, current students and alumni, community groups from Bozeman, advocacy groups from around the state, and the upper administration of the University. The impact of this input will continue through a provision that all policies and strategies, including sustainable strategies, will be reviewed in depth every five years.
The process initially solicited input from a very broad number of on-campus and community interests, including many from ecological and sustainable interests. Work was presented to the public and campus for feedback on three occasions during the process, and was rather painfully negotiated through a minefield of vice-presidents, deans, athletic directors, student service officials, maintenance directors, alumni interest groups, etc
Regional/Community Design:
The plan embodies a “stealth sustainability” strategy in a long-range campus master plan, intended to nudge a dubious administration in the direction of long range sustainability, while solving the pragmatic problems that accompany institutional growth. This is the first true Master Plan that has been accepted by the institution since the 1917 Cass Gilbert plan, and, as such, it will be a major influence on the region
As in other places, it is an under-funded campus in a region that may never be willing or able to be in the forefront of cutting edge technological solutions. The plan re-employs centuries-old principles of planning and design to minimize the use of resources, restore and enhance neglected natural systems, maximize the social, health and energy benefits inherent in compact walkable development, and utilize common-sense building and planning strategies that add little or nothing to costs. The plan is intended to produce an environment that will naturally conserve by design, and that will encourage healthy intellectual, social and physical activity, yet be easily adaptable to future advances in the technology of alternative energy sources as they become available and affordable. It could become an exemplar, appropriate to the region, to demonstrate to students, faculty and citizens how important steps toward future sustainability can be achieved by common sense, low/no cost design decisions that also produce a more livable and enjoyable environment.
