October 22, 2013
Survey asks, ‘How do you use campus spaces?’
Which spaces on the UW campus do you like the most? Which are the most useful? Where on campus are there barriers that make it harder for you to get around?
That’s the type of information being sought in an online survey that will be conducted through Nov. 1, the first step in setting a Campus Landscape Framework to develop an updated campus master plan.
The goal is to define places that should be preserved as they are, areas that would work better with some modification, and those that are little used as they are and so might be candidates for other types of development, said Kristine Kenney, UW landscape architect and director of campus design and planning.
The online survey includes an interactive campus map. At right are labels that can be placed on the map to show, for example, favorite dining spots. Each label also contains a comments field.
The plan, likely to be developed in 2015, would project 10 to 20 years into the future, and identify specific projects that are candidates for funding.
“We have an understanding of how we think people use the campus, but this is to confirm, or to enlighten us, as to how people go from place to place and use the campus,” Kenney said.
The survey is based on an interactive map that allows you to highlight things such as favorite campus landscapes or landscapes that need improvement, favorite outdoor places when it rains, where you dine and where you normally enter campus. The survey lets you show how you typically travel on campus and the routes you follow, and it collects some demographical data on participants.
The survey will include an informal daily competition among campus groups – faculty, staff and students, for example – to see which has the most respondents.
It’s the first time such a survey has been done online at UW, Kenney said. Using the map allows users to visualize the entire campus and include places such as the Union Bay natural area along the Lake Washington shoreline that often don’t come to mind immediately when thinking about the campus.
The goal of the Campus Landscape Framework process, she said, “is to create a sense of place that is different from anywhere else in the city, and different from any other college campus.”
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