Learning Resources

Abstract: This book shows how a campus is defined through its physical image—buildings and landscapes are designed to communicate the institution's purpose, presence and domain as well as generate an image charged with symbolism. Design principals, methods, and procedures with wide applications are described. Two key design components, placemaking and placemaking, are used as the basis for numerous case studies. Originally published by John Wiley & Sons in 1992, re-published by SCUP in 2003.

In the new foreword, Dober notes that “there is an ever-widening realization that a distinctive sense of place can have a positive impact on recruiting and retaining students, faculty, staff, trustees, and governing boards.” That makes the reprinted-in-full edition of this 1992 campus planning classic a required reference for all who care about the planning and development of an institution's buildings, grounds, and surroundings.

Richard Dober (1928–2014) was a planning and design advisor to more than 450 colleges, universities, and cultural institutions worldwide, as well as to foundations and government agencies, the World Bank, and UNESCO. He wrote nine books and numerous articles on planning and design and was a founder of the Society for College and University Planning. He led consulting firms since the early 1960s, including most recently, Dober Lidsky Mathey, a firm specializing in campus planning and facility planning services.

Abstract: Skillful management of an institution's physical assets is crucial to the institution's financial well-being. This publication provides executive managers and trustees with guidelines for long-term financial planning for plant renewal and adaption. It provides these strategic decision makers with a better understanding of the financial planning requirements necessary to protect the value of their institution's plant assets in relation to evolving institutional missions by giving them a clearer way to think about those assets. Readers are furnished with guidelines, examples of campus plans that incorporate them, and analytic tools.

A joint project of Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), The Association of Physical Plant Administrators of Universities and Colleges (APPA), and Coopers and Lybrand.

Abstract: An eight-year-old, rapidly growing institution serving the Denver metropolitan area will soon have the nation's largest installation heated by solar energy. To construct the North Campus of the Community College of Denver, state agencies and legislators have agreed to fund a project with 8 percent higher initial costs in anticipation of long-term savings. In this article, the author describes the evolution of this significant project.

Abstract: Leveling or even declining enrollment and the current economic recession in higher education have forced many colleges to suspend or cut back plans for new construction and to consider the re-use and recycling of existing buildings. One candidate for rehabilitation: the campus chapel. The possibilities were examined at a two-day conference at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio February 26-27, which provided the basis for this article.

Abstract: The concept that innovation and change in curriculum and teaching patterns will affect the arrangement and utilization of physical facilities is hardly novel in 1972. But perhaps nowhere has the principle been demonstrated more dramatically than at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. The college, with a faculty of 125 and a student body of 1,650, in September 1970 adopted a comprehensive plan that involved an almost total revision of the concepts of a course, a classroom, a contact hour, a unit of credit, scheduling procedures, and definitions of academic and non-academic space. This article is adapted from one by Dr. Glenn Brooks, professor of political science and assistant to the president, and Malcolm Ware, administrative assistant to the dean, describes both the planning process and the ultimate results. The original appeared in Higher Education Facilities Planning Manuals, published by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.