A Dynamic Campus Environment
the University’s need for growth for the next 10 to 20 years and will leave land available for continued growth beyond that planning horizon.
Concentrating future development on the main peninsula will create a critical mass necessary to support interdisciplinary research, academic interaction, and a more vital student and campus experience. Scaling down the super blocks for enhanced pedestrian circulation, re-introducing the urban grid on the peninsula, and filling unsightly voids created by surface lots and overly monumental open space will re-define the spatial order and create a new urban campus fabric.
Theme 1 Recommendations
• Build a critical mass of density on the peninsula, at key locations on campus
• Reinforce the heart of campus fronting University Boulevard
• Integrate diverse uses for convenience and quality of campus life
• Encourage vertical integration of uses
• Celebrate the street as a valuable asset
• Clarify campus organization for visitors
• Model sustainable urban systems
2. Unite the Campus
IUPUI has historically suffered from an
‘identity crisis’, the result of a physical campus fragmentation, administrative organizational divisions and program separation between the medical and healthcare focus and the academic core. This perception has been physically evidenced by dispersed academic, medical, undergraduate and professional facilities across the peninsula. Early in the university’s formation, impressions were that IUPUI “was not a university but a grouping of separate constituencies”. The 1970’s directive given to master planner Edward Larrabee Barnes and the landscape architecture firm Zion and Breen was to “make a group of separate buildings look like a campus”.
Today, IUPUI is host to a greater diversity of campus users than any other IU campus.
Undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students;
faculty, administrative and support staff; private researchers, physicians and healthcare staff;
hospital and clinical patients; and visitors from rural areas, the city, and the metropolitan region
Academic Campus
Medical Campus
all make up the estimated 57,000 daily campus population. The University and campus must not only work for its core academic, research and healthcare functions, it must also present a clear and organized environment for its many visitors.
The Master Plan proposes to unite undergraduate programs, professional schools, and the medical center. In the interest of leveraging the full potential of the academy, the new planning model recommends a cross-pollination of programs, schools, and centers to facilitate the exchange of ideas and provide greater student learning and mentoring opportunities. More integrated planning will allow IUPUI to
consolidate redundant resources into new shared facilities that by nature can contribute to more interdisciplinary learning approach.
Physically, the Master Plan proposes a new intellectual framework and campus organization that cuts across historic divisions. The plan proposes five distinct districts on campus, each combining a variety of academic, research, medical, and residential uses. Each district
is organized and defined by a major public space – either an urban park, plaza, or urban street. Three of the five districts align north- south, perpendicular to W. Michigan Street, the perceived dividing line between the academic and medical campuses. The fourth district, Vermont Street, ties the three together as an east-west street mainly containing functions geared to student life. The center of the campus is reinforced with mixed-use development containing a variety of functions and amenities, creating a natural destination and meeting spot, a common ground for the diverse IUPUI community.
Theme 2 Recommendations
• Integrate academic, research, and medical environments through physical, social, and programmatic mechanisms
• Promote the integration of professional and undergraduate student learning opportunities
• Facilitate a model of interdisciplinary learning
• Encourage the development of shared multi- user facilities
• Eliminate redundant, single-use facilities
Urban Setting
Vibrant Streetscape
3. Engage the City
“You can’t have a great city without a great university.”
— Former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson IUPUI is an important partner of the City of Indianapolis and host to many civic activities ranging from cultural to athletic events. One of the principle recommendations of the Master Plan is to meaningfully connect the campus and Indianapolis’s downtown. This includes extending physical connections to cultural attractions, athletic facilities, government operations, the White River, and to adjacent neighborhoods. Deliberate engagement will allow the campus community to fully take advantage of its position in the heart of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis community to realize the many benefits of being adjacent to world-class academic, cultural, research and medical facilities. More effective connections will be accomplished, in part, by strengthening and expanding linkages along traditional networks including the street grid, transit corridors, bikeways, open spaces, and pedestrian systems.
The Master Plan advocates mixed-use facilities, carefully placed dense development, strategic public-private partnerships, and shared community facilities in order to encourage positive bonds between the IUPUI campus and City.
Theme 3 Recommendations
• Connect the fabric of the campus to the City
• Leverage campus and city venues including:
cultural, athletic, academic, medical, research, and civic amenities
• Improve all transportation networks and connections
• Reconnect the campus with all its neighbors
• Engage the White River open space
• Explore shared community amenities and neighborhood alliances
4. Redefine the Public Realm
Broadly defined, the public realm is the setting for inspired learning and intellectual exchange.
The Master Plan proposes to re-define the public realm by aggressively reshaping campus spaces, orienting new buildings to activate streets and
Campus Center Outdoor Cafe
Medical Center Mall
public space, and reinforcing pedestrian activity at the ground plane. In principle, the expansion of second level skywalks is not encouraged for the academic district as it removes pedestrian activity from the street level. Exceptions are made to facilitate patient, physician, and visitor movement to and within the medical district.
The Plan expands the open space vocabulary of campus beyond the academic model of malls and quadrangles to include more urban models of active streets, plazas, and squares, fronted by buildings with a vibrant and transparent first floor presence. Through development of surface parking lots and campus infill, the plan creates a network of more pedestrian and human-scaled spaces, with interior and exterior space for socializing and interaction in both new and retrofitted facilities. Creating a central ‘piazza’ and civic space at the “100%
corner” of University and Vermont Streets will anchor the heart of campus. A more urban streetscape vernacular, mid-block crossings, and multiple transportation options will enhance the pedestrian experience, lessen the visual intrusion
of parking and traffic, and positively impact the social characteristics of campus.
Theme 4 Recommendations
• Reintroduce human-scaled open space to campus
• Use new development with active first floor uses to animate and shape outdoor space
• Return the pedestrian experience to the ground plane.
• Create a central “100%” spot on campus
• Improve and expand existing streetscapes, transportation networks, and trails systems
• Clarify the visitor experience through enhanced public spaces
• Address parking and circulation’s interface with the public realm
5. Animate the Campus
IUPUI’s close proximity to the White River State Park, downtown Indianapolis, the city’s Cultural and Canal Districts, and established neighborhoods provide a great foundation to build a vibrant urban campus. However, as a commuter campus, the current IUPUI
Massachusetts Avenue, Indianapolis
Cultural Trail, Indianapolis
environment lacks the ingredients that build urban energy: a night life, a varied choice of amenities and services, a sense of neighborhood.
More dense development, mixed uses, and a robust campus life will transform IUPUI. An on-campus, 24-7 presence of student life is envisioned with new housing typologies on the Vermont Street corridor, supported by indoor recreational facilities located at the heart of campus. Completion of the Cultural Trail on Blackford and a new public/private mixed use development on the Indiana Avenue and N. West Street frontage will engage both the campus and adjacent neighborhoods. More residents, more eateries, more public spaces and more amenities, choreographed with pedestrian experiences at every 2-3 minute walking distance intervals, will contribute to a livelier environment for IUPUI students, faculty, and staff and for the greater Indianapolis community.
Theme 5 Recommendations
• Develop more on-campus housing
• Add indoor and outdoor urban recreational amenities
• Infuse the campus with more social and gathering spaces
• Create a 24/7 environment in the campus core
• Encourage an atmosphere that provides opportunities to learn, live, work, and play on campus
• Connect amenities on campus with amenities downtown via streetscapes and pleasant walkable corridors
• Provide dedicated gathering spaces for active and passive activities