Enhancing Learning and Research Excellence
The goals, objectives, and principles of Campus Plan 2050 support Life-Changing Education through a focus on enhancing the learning and research experience, campus vitality, renewal, and strategic investment.
Goal 1: Offer amenities and services that enrich the teaching, learning, and research experiences on the Ann Arbor campus.
Objectives
- Promote mixed-use development enriched by robust amenities.
- Encourage social, recreational, and cultural interaction.
Goal 2: Promote collaborative environments.
Objectives
- Increase opportunities for interdisciplinary research and learning within facilities.
- Encourage the flexible use of space.
- Create new collaboration hubs that promote neighborhood engagement.
Goal 3: Enhance campus character.
Objectives
- Respect and enhance U-M’s heritage historic buildings and structures while encouraging innovative, creative, high-performance facilities.
- Identify opportunities for redevelopment and infill to use existing land most efficiently and to increase density.
Goal 4: Support the university’s mission-driven needs and plan for growth.
Objectives
- Rationalize campus space to meet current and projected needs for academic, research, and clinical requirements.
- Increase housing inventory to meet needs and replace aging facilities.
Life-Changing Education Principles
- Provide a variety of services and amenities of existing and proposed buildings to strengthen campus life and vitality.
- Provide equitable, welcoming, and accessible educational and research experiences on all campuses in support of the university’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives.
- Create both exterior and interior accessible human-scale spaces that encourage social, recreational, and cultural interaction.
- Establish a mix of land uses—arts and cultural, health and well-being, recreational, academic and research, residential, social, etc.
- Promote generous access to the arts and humanities on all campuses; identify opportunities for public art and interpretive signage and information.
- Provide open spaces at a variety of scales that are pleasant, accessible, and that enhance the user experience and well-being.
- Embed spaces with opportunities for collaboration, study, gathering, and reflection.
- Site locations in areas that are accessible to housing, academic, and research uses.
- Respect and enhance the integrity of heritage historic buildings and structures during renovation and repurposing, improving energyefficiency through deep energy retrofits.
- Evaluate options for re-use or redevelopment of buildings reaching the end of their useful life relative to programmatic needs and the best use of the site. Maximize redevelopment; replace or renovate inefficient, low-density, outdated, and obsolete facilities with carbon-neutral, flexible, and adaptable buildings.
- Protect existing viewsheds and explore opportunities to create new, iconic views with redevelopment initiatives.
- Protect open spaces that have a special place in the life and history of the university.
- Optimize the density of future development in identified areas of the campuses to ensure efficient utilization of land and infrastructure.
- Respect surrounding areas and buildings in terms of height, massing, scale, setback, materials, and roof line where appropriate when planning new buildings, additions, and renovations with exterior impacts.
- Optimize capacity and maximize flexibility through efficient utilization of land.
- Prioritize highest and best use of available development zones based on its unique aspects (density, location, access, natural features).
- Utilize campus land to support the academic, research, clinical care, student life, athletics, and sustainability missions of the university.
- Plan with flexibility in anticipation of future programmatic requirements that cannot be predicted today.
- Incorporate a range of new civic spaces to strengthen the collegiality of the campus to meet a diverse range of needs and preferences.