Aurarua Higher Education Center

OPEN GALLERY

Highlights

• Site – 150 acres

• The campus is shared by three higher learning institutions.

• The plan proposes to shift the balance towards shared multi-use facilities and away from single-use and single-occupant facilities.

• Urban context and history inform the contemporary planning approach.

• The plan carefully analyzed natural systems to inform sustainable strategies.

• Landscape strategies relate to the broader city planning context.

• The plan creates an active and varied public realm.

• The Learning Loop anchors the academic experience.

• The plan creates a new governance model for integrated decision-making.

Perspectives

The Auraria Campus Framework Plan (CFP) provides a roadmap to guide future campus growth, which is uniquely shared by three separate and distinct institutions of higher learning: Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and University of Colorado Denver. The CFP therefore establishes a unified vision to realize synergies and efficiencies that come from sharing a campus while also manifesting the distinct academic mission of each partner institution. The proposed framework plan concepts will maintain the distinct identities and sense of community of the existing three institutional neighborhoods while coordinating future developments to better optimize the land on the Auraria Campus. The CFP touches the full spectrum of university activity: academics and research, residential life, wellness, open space, mobility, infrastructure, sustainability, and integration with Downtown Denver planning initiatives.

Given the unique nature of a singular campus shared by several institutions, the integrated planning process was critical to CFP’s success. The process was organized around deep engagement with leadership from each of the three institutions and state landlord, and with a representative steering committee composed of members from each institution. Due to the complex nature of stakeholders on campus, it was critical to understand the individual needs and priorities of each partner institution and then engage with them together to reveal synergies or conflicts across all on-campus stakeholders. This involved meetings with multiple leadership, student, and faculty groups from all partner institutions. The very structure of an integrated, multi-institutional leadership team and steering committee was novel, since, historically, each campus pursued their own academic planning and facility investment in a vacuum.

The concept for a ‘Learning Loop’ on campus proposes an overall development structure to concentrate the traditional shared higher education programs and functions in the core of the campus, creating an educational oasis, while offering a front door to each of the academic institutions. This provides a much-needed circulation hierarchy that connects the institutional neighborhoods to each other and promotes the sharing of common assets like general purpose classrooms.

Project Team

Sasaki; U3 Advisors, Real Estate Analysis, Development, and Implementation.