“The influence of architecture with which we are surrounded in youth affects our lives, our standards, our tastes when we are grown, just as the influence of the parents and teachers with which we are surrounded in our youth affects us as adults.”
These apt words from J. Irwin Miller were quoted by the design firm Studio Zewde as they presented their ideas for the future of Columbus’s airpark campus earlier this week.
The firm was one of four that presented pitches for the campus’s potential master plan and landscape design project to project partners and community members over Zoom on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In March, the Cummins Foundation announced its possible support for the tentative project. The foundation’s architecture program recommended four firms for consideration: Reed Hilderbrand of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) of Seattle, Washington; Merritt Chase of Indianapolis; and Studio Zewde of Harlem, New York.
Reed Hilderbrand and Studio Zewde gave their presentations on Tuesday; Merrit Chase and GGN gave their presentations on Wednesday. Each firm was given approximately 30 minutes for presentation and 20 minutes for Q&A. Audience members were able to submit questions via chat and were later sent a feedback form to share any comments they might have.
In their presentations, firms talked about their ideas for the campus landscape and master plan, experience with other projects, potential timeline for planning and execution, methods of community engagement in the process and focus on equity as a driver in the project.
Also, given the scope of the project, each firm said that they intend to bring on other individuals, firms and organizations as collaborators in the work, including some that have worked on local Columbus projects in the past.
“Our campus project team will be working hard to make the final decision on selecting a firm in the coming couple of weeks,” said Community Education Coalition Executive Director Kathy Oren. “As you all can see, I think we have four truly incredible firms to choose from. And so selecting just one as our partner is not going to be an easy decision, but that’s a wonderful problem to have.”
The parking puzzle
While no two presentations were exactly alike, common themes reoccurred throughout the sessions. For instance, all firms recognized parking as a challenge they would have to consider, given that it surrounds and somewhat isolates the campus.
“Right now, the campus is in parking, instead of the parking being in the campus,” said Sara Zewde, founding principal at Studio Zewde.
Beka Sturges, lead landscape architect and a principal at Reed Hilderbrand, said that the current ring of parking has a sort of “island effect” for the campus. She said that reimagining parking could be a way to bring people closer together and also bring them into the spaces that already exist on campus.
She said that as Reed Hilderbrand looks at creating a “shared reality” through campus design, they are considering two ideas for how they look at the campus. One builds on grid ideas, and the other is more inspired by river systems and would include a set of “braided corridors.”
Sturges added that the two ideas could also be combined.
“We love that you have this hybrid educational structure, this sort of novel way of organizations coming together to serve the community and offer education,” she said. “And we think as we put these ideas before you, it’s possible to hybridize them. So it’s not necessarily one versus the other.”
Landscape elements
While firms largely avoided presenting comprehensive landscape plans, they did discuss some potential features that could be implemented.
Larry Weaner, of Larry Weaner Landscape Associates, said that his company has been brought on by Studio Zewde primarily as “meadow consultants,” as a meadow might be a potential part of the landscape project.
He illustrated this concept by showing a picture from RiverWalk Park in Tarrytown.
“It’s a fairly condensed area, as is your campus, where these meadow plantings would not cover acres and acres,” he said. “… These are fairly small areas viewed from up close with lots of activity going. It would not be appropriate, from an aesthetic standpoint, to design something that was purely wild in this space. And so, consequently, what you’re seeing here is an expression of what we consider ourselves to be, which is a firm that walks the line between ecological restoration and fine garden design.”
He said that this kind of meadow contains native species that attract native birds and butterflies, adding both an ecological component and a “significant part of the experience.”
Sturges said that Reed Hilderbrand’s team wants to explore the “landscape effects” of having a campus situated on an airport and what considerations that might present, particularly in regards to trees.
Merritt Chase cofounder Nina Chase said that they see landscape serving as a “bridge” between the campus and surrounding neighborhoods.
“I think, currently, it’s not happening because the landscape that exists is very vehicular-focused,” she said. “It’s not a pedestrian scale. There are some connections; the People Trail is there, and there are gateways into your campus. But it’s not as inviting as I think it could be for the surrounding community and the neighborhood, specifically for people who could open their front door and come into your space. And so for us, I think a big piece of that puzzle is getting the pedestrian scale right of your streetscapes.”
GGN voiced similar intentions to focus on connecting the campus with the community and create a more welcoming pedestrian scale. Co-founder Shannon Nichol said that the current roadway and connection framework is super-scaled and somewhat “unfriendly” to pedestrians and possibly drivers as well. She suggested looking at a traditional grid system, such as that of downtown Columbus, as a potential guide for where intuitive and safe crossings could be created in the area.
Nichol also said that another item of interest is how to take the edge between the airpark and surrounding neighborhoods and transform it from a boundary into a “central draw.” She suggested a “green edge” or “reforested belt” that could mark entry into the airpark while also providing a shared amenity.
Community connections
Nichol also said that improving the connections both to and on campus would break the site down into smaller parcels, which could be used to host and display a variety of campus and community programs. She also said that it might be possible to grow the plants for the project on-site.
Sturges likewise said that the project could provide a means to highlight campus achievements.
“I think we love this idea that there’s so much work happening behind closed doors right now, on the campus,” she said. “… If the lab stuff is just some of the coolest lab stuff happening in the country today, how can that be situated and somehow visible on the campus?”
She added that outdoor classrooms could help make the “close exchanges and relationships” of class settings more visible.
Finding ways to connect the campus to the larger community was also an area of focus in Studio Zewde’s presentation.
Zewde said that during the virtual site visit, her team asked what the project partners loved about Columbus.
“We were so compelled by this unique pairing of a tight-knit community — and many folks actually referenced the size of Columbus as a reason why they love it so much — but paired with an outsized ambition and desire, really, to change the community and the world,” she said.
She said that the team began looking at the master plan by asking two more questions: what’s the best thing that could happen at the airpark campus, and what’s the worst thing?
In reviewing the answers, the team saw a focus on serving both students and the community, as well as “inclusivity and belonging.” The worst case scenario for many individuals was that the campus would become too exclusive.
Zewde said that as they approached the project, her team looked at three relationships or scales: the quad, the campus and the community.
The quad, she said, is traditionally the heart of a school and is meant to feel “secluded and safe,” promoting growth and exploration in individuals. The campus supports the quad by having “a set of connected spaces” and forming a “cohesive envelope” that can be seen by the community.
“The community, in a place as vibrant as Columbus, is key,” Zewde said. “And towards supporting ambitions of economic growth that are inherent in the educational model that the CEC represents, we think from a design perspective, these three scales are inseparable.”
She said that Central Avenue could be come an important corridor in terms of linking the three scales, and the demolition of Poling Hall could also help strengthen the connection.
The feel and look of a campus can be a big factor in whether or not a student chooses to attend the school and added that a campus also represents collaboration with the larger area, Zewde said.
“The idea of a campus is really understood to represent the contributions of the academic institution to its community,” she said. “… It’s a gesture, a welcome mat and a physical expression of that relationship.”
Chase also touched on the quad and its relation to connectivity. She said that quads have historically had an “inward focus.”
“But our intention here, working with you, is to do something that would extend beyond the campus and really knit everything together across the neighborhoods and the airpark campus itself,” she said.
Serving students
In discussing their ideas for the campus, firms also touched on how design might serve to further connections among students.
“We were struck by the statement in your RFP about how your students, many don’t have close friends on campus and spend a lot of time in their cars,” said Chase. “We took a look at the landscape spaces that you have now that would facilitate relationship building and just being together on campus. And our biggest takeaway is that, right now, these outdoor spaces are underutilized and not quite facilitating the dignified experiences and relationship building that you aspire to.”
She said that the team wants to look at how they can leverage the time students spend on campus and “design the outdoor spaces to support the indoor activity.”
Chase said that one of the challenges of the project will be keeping students’ limited time in mind as they pursue the campus’s goal of supporting those students through the landscape.
“Extending indoor program and classroom settings and the makerspaces and the kind of things that are happening behind closed doors out into the landscape, that could be a way to leverage the time that everybody already is on campus and not create more things for people to do that just stretch their time more thin,” she said.
Jean Ni of GGN said that there’s a balance in figuring out how to make the campus a welcoming place for busy students, particularly those who are commuters.
“Two-thirds of students don’t live within the county, and so airpark could be a community and personal space away from home, function as a comfortable living room, or act as social space for making friends,” she said. “Some students are parents or have other obligations outside of school, so how can the space be an enjoyable experience while you’re passing through, because that’s a necessity, but also be a welcome respite during a hectic week?”
Bringing in opportunities
Firms also discussed how the project could provide possibilities for direct hands-on involvement for both students and community members.
Zewde said that her firm looks at a community’s social ties, and then they “embed the process into them.”
“We pair opportunities like involving people in the process, employing them,” Zewde said. “If there is a prototyping element, we offer jobs. We offer internships. We could work with the architecture program and have an academic component to this.”
Purdue Polytechnic Columbus Director Joe Fuehne also submitted a question asking firms if they would be interested in engaging capstone design classes to design and build structures for the project.
Chase said that her firm “would love to do that.”
“To be able to engage your students in that process and extend that project-based learning that you have on your campus to the landscapes so that the actual building of the landscape becomes a learning opportunity and a project in and of itself — we would all be thrilled to think about that,” she said.
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The project’s request for proposals outlines the scope of work in two parts: the campus master plan and the landscape design.
The campus master plan phase involves planning and landscape design for the airpark campus as a whole.
The landscape design phase involves three specific areas of campus — the southwest corner, the main campus quad and the northeast corner. The southwest corner is to be the initial priority, in the hopes that implementation might coincide with the opening of the new Ivy Tech building.
The landscape design project was partially spurred by the construction of the new building, which will replace Poling Hall and is set to open in the summer of 2022.
Partners on the airpark campus master plan and landscape design project include (but are not limited to) Ivy Tech Columbus, IUPUC, Purdue Polytechnic Columbus, the City of Columbus, Columbus Municipal Airport and the Community Education Coalition. There is also a project guiding team, a campus coordinating and selection input team, and a large community stakeholder advisory group.
In March, a "potential collaboration" with the Cummins Foundation on the landscape design project was announced.
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