The University of Florida's strategic development plan, which we helped author in collaboration with our friends at Elkus Manfredi Architects, established an unprecedented collaborative vision that seeks to transform the City of Gainesville and the university through a series of joint initiatives addressing urban form, ecological stewardship, and community prosperity.
The university now pursues the same goal through an internal lens. That aspiration drives this subsequent work. The framework plan is a guide to the university’s physical development that: identifies priority projects; provides a process for future decision making around the physical environment; synthesizes the work of complementary studies, including the Strategic Development Plan and master plans for transportation and parking, utilities, landscape, and housing; and governs updates to the university’s official master plan.
The framework proposes that new capital projects reinforce at least one of five themes that emerged from our study: Open Space and Infrastructure, Interdisciplinary Research (including the academic medical center), the Future of Learning, the Student Experience, and Academic Regeneration.
The framework explores short, medium, and long-term time frames, and is flexible enough to accommodate the unexpected while providing insights that will always remain relevant.