Page 30 - College Planning & Management, March 2019

BRINGING OUT THAT COMMUNITY FEEL
We designed unique student-experience areas, including an outdoor stage for events, and custom furniture, called pods, for outdoor study and collaboration that support laptops with WiFi and charging stations. They’re certainly getting used.
Most of the master plan’s seven zones in Phase 1 have been completed over a period of five years. In the most recently complet- ed construction stages, Turtle Island Walk, River Commons, and Welcome Centre Commons weave new pedestrian pathways as part of the Discovery Route.
As just one aspect of the reimagining of campus, River Commons will be a signa- ture space that celebrates the university’s location on the Detroit River.
The design features colored paving, seating, and landscaping that will create an abstract map of the river and its islands, the bridge, and the campus location within the region. Patterns in the pavement rep- resent the historical farm settlements that form the area’s first concession roads.
Enhanced with lighting, landscaping, and signage that lead to hubs of activity for recreation, cultural displays, events, and casual gathering spaces with seating, the route also creates places for future sculpture and gardens, linking with the riverfront Windsor Sculpture Park. The plan also heightens the sense of arrival on campus with impressive gateway signage and welcoming points of interest.
PODCASTING. Seating with custom-designed, accessible furniture made of marine-grade resin polymer wood on a precast concrete base, incorporating power and WiFi, are clustered in six areas known as pods.
Trees and planting beds flank each pod. The pods have a seating capacity of 24.
An Invitation to the Outdoors
The David A. Wilson Commons, formerly a parking lot, boasts a basketball court, benches, and a ping pong table,
as well as new landscaping and lighting. These facilities are usable by neighborhood locals as well as by university students
and staff. By breaking down the “town vs. gown” barrier and giving locals “skin in the game,” the neighboring citizenry is mo- tivated to act as the safety-enhancing “eyes on the street” described in Jane Jacobs’s iconic urban-planning manifesto The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Aesthetically, +VG’s built work
ranges from an elegant restrained style that
30 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / MARCH 2019
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