University Master Planning
University Master Plan is a roadmap for future change on the University. It provides guidelines for making decisions about the built environment on campus, ranging from large-scale decisions such as where to locate major new academic, administrative, or recreational facilities, and which landscapes to preserve, to smaller-scale decisions such as the best location for a new pathway or the type of signs to use throughout the campus.
The Master Plan is also used as a tool for setting campus priorities. Academic and institutional needs, which needs should be addressed first? Etc. The master plan provides an objective snapshot of the University facilities in the present year, and can map out foreseeable projects for the next 10 to 50 years.
The master plan also provide a mechanism for review and renewal, to ensure that future projects that are not anticipated in today’s plan are compatible with long-term development of the campus.
A master plan is also a strategy for targeted investments. Where campus funds should be spent to produce the most significant results for the greatest number of people? Can similar projects be combined to achieve the needed results at less cost? To produce synergies among departments and programs, can facilities needed serve as catalysts for academic change? Can academic change identify a more efficient use of existing facilities? These are the questions that a campus master plan tries to answer.
The role of the university master plan therefore is to promote communication between parts of the campus, to create adaptable yet coherent urban structures, and to provide the means of achieving a quality image for the university. Practical problems facing universities that require address through master planning are: circulation, creating room for external growth, defining the centre and campus edge and establishing the footprint of key buildings and environmental factors.
Kioto Consultants has developed master plans for the following institutions: Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kibabii University, Meru University of Science and Technology, Taita Taveta University, University of Eldoret and The Co-operative University of Kenya.
