UB hires landscape architects
Team to develop comprehensive master plan for campuses

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

In an attempt to improve campus aesthetics and aid in student recruitment, UB has hired a team of consultants to develop a comprehensive master landscaping plan for the North and South campuses.

The universitywide Master Landscape Plan Advisory Committee has selected as consultants the local firms of Wendel Engineering and B. Arnold & Associates, and the New York City-based HOKPlanning Group-the landscape-architectural division of the internationally known design firm of Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum-to provide UB with specific plans for both campuses, said Michael Wright, associate program coordinator for University Facilities and project manager for the landscaping project.

This drawing illustrates the signage program that, along with a landscaping master plan that is being developed, are hoped to improve university aesthetics.

The advisory committee is co-chaired by Dennis Andrejko, associate professor of architecture, and Dean Reinhart, senior advisor in the Office of Admissions.

The landscaping plan dovetails with a project already under way to install new signage on both campuses, Wright said.

A key goal of the landscaping project, he said, is to create an environment that will help with the recruitment of students. "We want parents of potential students, when they bring their kids to campus for a visit, to have a good impression of the university," he said.

Peter Killian, director of marketing and a member of the advisory committee, noted that the architects are charged with "looking at everything, not just where we can plant flowers." The project is "wide-open," Killian said, and proposals would range anywhere from integrating bike and roller-blade paths across the two campuses to tearing up Founder's Plaza along the academic Spine on the North Campus.

The consultants plan to conduct 400 in-person surveys of UB faculty, staff and students within the next several weeks, and will hold several public forums on both campuses in an attempt to get input from the university community as it develops a plan, Wright said.

In addition, they take into consideration UB 2025, a 30-year project spearheaded by the Environmental Task Force to transform the North Campus into a greener, more inviting physical environment. A key component of the plan is to restore more than 100 acres of the campus to the woodlands that existed before the campus was built.

The master plan is expected to be completed by April, Wright said, noting the actual landscaping work will be done in phases over five to 10 years. Although no budget has been set, the project will be financed with capital money, he said.

The landscaping project fits in with the ongoing signage program on both campuses.

Killian said the signage project, which will entail the manufacture and installation of more than 1,200 signs on both campuses, has gone out to bid. Bids are to be opened in early December and the firm that is selected will manufacture the signs that will be installed on the campuses in spring and summer 2000.

The project is designed to improve signage at the gateways to the campuses-including the construction of significant masonry signposts of brick and stone to reflect each campus' unique architecture-improve the "way-finding" system and improve the building-identification system.