The campus master plan is conceived as an academic village, comprised of separate buildings but connected, linked by colonnades around a landscape commons. The commons is the intellectual and social crossroads which unites the university’s diverse academic disciplines as one community, both in spirit and in practice.

Each of the five buildings around the commons houses an academic faculty. They are each distinctive, internally centered around an interior winter garden. This central sky-lit space allows natural light to penetrate the interiors and provides orientation, and a gathering place, for students and faculty to connect. While the buildings share a common vocabulary of warm red brick, copper cladding, cedar detailing and large windows, the atria are each unique in their spatial relationships to the program and their relationship to the campus commons.

The north-side of the commons is framed by the University Library with a circular reading room overlooking the distant landscape and a cafe on the ground floor. A reflecting pool manages storm water in the summer and provides ice skating opportunities in the winter.

The central quadrangle also covers one of the largest geothermal fields in North America (390 closed-loop boreholes that extend 600 feet below the surface), which are used to heat and cool the campus buildings.

Finding the efficiencies and opportunities that connect various disciplines has been the key to the innovations and success of this project. A strategy employing emerging technologies, sustainable design, campus planning and architectural excellence has created a highly efficient campus and laid a solid foundation for the university’s future success.

The complete master plan and architectural design of nine campus buildings which cover 750,000 square feet in area over 400 acres has been executed by Diamond Schmitt.