Five Big Ideas

The master plan vision describes an approach to the long-term physical configuration of the Occidental College campus.  This vision will be carried out through many kinds of projects, each contributing to the incremental completion of the vision, addressing architecture, landscape, traffic and parking, sustainability, historic preservation, and neighborhood compatibility.

This section of the master plan describes the five big ideas that will prioritize the execution and guide the design of each project, big or small, through 2025:

I. Restore and adaptively reuse existing buildings

The College’s historic buildings are irreplaceable and their restoration and reuse should be the first option to meeting future program needs.  This effort acknowledges Myron Hunt’s remarkable vocabulary of architecture and gardens, both of which are inseparable from the identity of the College.  These historic buildings and places on the Occidental campus provide both the essential image and the key places on campus that the academic community associates with the process of learning.  All design work on historic resources should be executed under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.

II. Build new projects that contribute to a coherent campus form

A college is an operating entity that requires the freedom to sensitively add new buildings and other facilities to its campus as necessary to carry out its academic mission.  A principle strategy of this master plan is the design of such new buildings, principally on infill sites.  Densification of the existing campus offers the social benefit of concentrating the relatively small campus population in the existing heart of the College, and reinforcing the interactive nature of campus life.  This kind of reinvestment confirms the core of the campus as the College’s permanent historic center.

III. Pedestrianize the academic campus

Over the next 20 years through 2025, the center of the Occidental campus should be pedestrianized.  This can be accomplished by two principle means: Incrementally converting selected roads, parking lots and other hardscape areas into service roads and pedestrian use; and adding and/or improving existing leftover space into gardens, gathering places, pedestrian paths, and other means of facilitating social interaction. This should also include providing access for the disabled.

IV. Create green buildings and green landscapes

Every opportunity should be taken advantage of in integrating sustainability measures into the renovation and construction of new campus buildings, landscapes and utility systems.  Linking environmental stewardship with every new project on campus will offer tangible middle- and long-term savings.  It also will provide a model of environmentally responsible management that recognizes Occidental as a leader in this area among its peer academic institutions.

V. Encourage and/or participate in neighborhood-compatible development

An active town-gown engagement benefits the College’s academic programs and purposes.  General initiatives will center on two areas:  Advocacy for development of projects which can improve life both in the neighborhoods and the campus; and the maintenance of channels of communication regarding campus-initiated projects.  Specific projects of mutual interest include ongoing use of campus-owned neighborhood houses, potential mixed-use projects in commercial areas, a variety of neighborhood improvements, and new faculty and staff housing opportunities on the edge of campus.