A Syncretic Landscape: The City Campus Paradigm in Auburn, Alabama Marco Giliberti Master of Landscape Architecture, Auburn University ABSTRACT A new urban design paradigm emerges. The American University is committed to adopting a set of strategies to increase urbanity on campus. This set of strategies comprehends the possibility to physically strengthen campus and city, and to create the precondition for a more cohesive community. In this fringing, it appears clear that, the study of the physical edge between campus and city is an opportunity for campus landscape designers to find workable solutions for both the university and the city. However, if one hand this initial operation is welcomed as a first move toward the resolution of old conflicts such as the town-gown conflict, on another it may not be sufficient to reframe campus-city relationship in the future. How can we improve urbanity on campus? Can campus planners propose a different kind of urbanism? What cutting-edge landscape design strategies can be used to increase university's interest in the idea of public space? With the aim of rethinking the idea of in-between and in-between design explorations in American, this work focuses on Toomer's corner, which epitomizes the university-city boundary in Auburn, Alabama. This work claims that the operation of rethinking of the landscape in-between the campus and the city can help to renew the general debate that focuses on the study of the nature of public space in contemporary America. Key Words: Landscape Theory, Campus Design, Campus City Relationships, American City, In-Between A Syncretic Landscape: The City Campus Paradigm in Auburn Alabama TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 1.1 GENEALOGY-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9 2. THE CASE STUDY OF AN UNIVERSITY CAMPUS--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------23 3 THE CASE OF AUBURN, AL---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------29 4 METHODOLOGIES-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------48 5 RETHINKING THE IN-BETWEEN----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------63 6 LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------114 7 REFERENCES-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------120 8 AKNOWLEDGEMENTS-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------125 How the relationship between Auburn downtown + AU campus can be redefined? Marco Giliberti. Thesis Studio. 2013 School of Architecture, Planning and landscape Architecture College of Architecture, Design and Construction Auburn Univerity, Auburn, Alabama INTRO D U C TION Cha pter 1 Even if systematically disregarded by some institutions, expectations of greater collaboration between universities and cities have not been disappointed in a variety of cases. After rediscovering the civic spirit of nineteenth century American University, many public teaching and research institutions of the United States have started redesigning the equilibrium of power between academia and nearby cities in recent years. However, different universities adopt different strategies. Pressed by necessity to grow, and conditioned by lack of space; the American urban university de-privatizes real estate in close proximity to the campus. Then, directly and/or indirectly, this operation forces the university to create an essential pre-condition of dialogue with the city. Different from the urban university, rural universities, whose image is historically rooted in the tradition of the small American town, seem to misinterpret the original land grant mission; apparently reducing the power of its civic mission; which was originally considered a key aspect in determining the future role and character of the university. This phenomenon is due in part to the abundance of space that national governmental agencies guarantee to rural universities. It is due also to the articulation of the mission of the eighteenth century rural university in the twentieth century (space grant, sea grant). This partial inattention of the twentieth century American university to the city has affected the spatial quality of the American town, changing its original physical character in some cases; in others changing its original civic and economic importance within the region. The image of the community of scholars is generally borrowed to epitomize the community in a more generic term. The idea of community gains terrain in the debate on the new form of livelihood and ways of life. In this period the university is like a city. I will here attempt to clarify and to evidence what I think characterizes the profound transformation of the idea of the University in the long run. The American university is no more a mere religious institution at the turn of the nineteenth century. At this time a group of politicians and administrators help to rethink the democratic university. Furthermore, a renewed interest toward the city emerges in the 1960s. In this period, requests for a more democratic university come from a rapidly changing society. This part of the society criticizes, in the 1960s, the original declination and the main character of the university, namely: the construction of a 'national elite': which is formed in the shadow of the dominant figures of the community, of the culture and education. An arduous and complicated process of gradual opening toward a more democratic university is originated in the nineteenth century. This is a moment when the American university is hampered by strong resistances. The American university is called by the state to play a central politic role at the moment and after the period of the close of the frontier. Now, diverse identities of different members of society need a common project to live together after a period of prolonged diaspora. In this framework: the University stands as an essential factor of cohesion and rootedness. The campus in its current guise is the result of a long process of transformation. The American campus has the appearance it does today due to the university's oscillation between two prevailing positions: isolation from society and integration into society. In the twentieth century these two positions produced two distinct forms of campus: the "ivory tower" and the urban campus. At this point, it is useful to clarify the meaning of the word campus as used in this study, starting from a more generic definition. Contemporary campuses result from the choices made by American universities to be either open or closed to state and national requirements, demands from industry and foundations, and ultimately the requirements of the society that exists spatially in the relation between the campus and its host city. The campus, then, as a physical and spatial entity, offers access to a set of data that enables a concatenation of reflections on the relationship between the university and society in the United States. Generally speaking, the campus is a place that houses university buildings. Common spaces for students may confer a generic, homogeneous aspect to the campus. Furthermore, in the United States, the campus is also the place where professors develop their teaching and research activities, administrators manage the university operations and finances, and students, availing themselves of their right to study, are trained to become specialists in their chosen fields. The campus is also a very specialised place (just think of a medical or technological campus). The word campus also indicates the community that lives, works and plays within and outside of all the spaces owned by a specific university. The campus community is predominantly composed of the academic community, consisting of professors, researchers and students. In this paper the word universityis used to indicate the community on campus. In the United States, science and higher education are called by the state to build the industrial America in the twentieth century. At this time, politicians, planners, religious congregations and public administrators help to create the theoretical basis for university planning. This theory (and this technique) finds reason for existence in the work of American landscape architect Frederick law Olmsted. Institutions such as the university are an expression of an emerging leisure class that considers education a commodity. Specifically, architecture is expression of the life of colleges. The campus also emerges as an element of distinction of the American Metropolis. However, the path of the American university toward the city is not of linear type. Campus development is an issue in the 1960s. The university adopts the image of 'ideal city' and some university campuses are a vivid expression of the idea of social utopianism. At present, the campus and community are mutually positioned according to two relatively different positions: The isolated (or semi isolated) position; and the integrated position (generically internal to the urban fabric). The use of the word campus (Latin for 'field') to mean the grounds of a college originated at Princeton. GEN E A LOGies CH APTE R 1.1 THe idea of the campus and the city often OVERlap EXAMples Campo Marzio within the city of Rome, Gianbattista Piranesi, seventeenth century, Italy The Utopian origin of the campus: The Ideal City, Italy 1 4 8 0 Urbana-Champaign's campus, Illinois 1 9 2 0 The use of the word campus (Latin for 'field') to mean the grounds of a college originated at Princeton. Its earliest recorded use is found in a letter Charles C. Beatty wrote to his brother-in-law Enoch Green 1760 on January 31, 1 7 7 4: "Last week to show our patriotism, we gathered all the steward's winter store of tea, and having made a fire in the Campus, we there burnt near a dozen pounds, tolled the bell and made many spirited resolves" ?le-de-France, Paris = 1 7 9 1 The idea of the campus re-emerges in France, in the period of the French Revolution. The campus is now the spatial paradigm for the new urban Hospital. Placed in the midst of mediaeval Paris, Hotel Dieu is the place where revolutionists develop their principles of urban reform. Municipal administrators manage the renewal operations and finances: to access to well- spaced, safer, urban buildings. As a modern medical or technological campus, the campus is already a specialized place in the nineteenth-century Europe. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign = 1 9 2 0 The campus is designed around a well-defined central space. American Architect F L Wright's project of Broadacre City is a city within the campus 1 9 3 0 IThe campus within the city of Chicago in Illinois is the IIT campus. This campus was designed by famous German architect Mies van der Rohe in the 1940s. The campus was part of a large plan of urban renewal sponsored by the city of Chicago and HUD 1 9 4 0 Urban campus Chicago 2 0 0 5 I mention a number of landscape planning strategies that campus landscape designers have produced to give shape to the new landscape of the American University. These cases are considered at least of relevance to illustrate the generic condition of the landscape investigate here. This research relies on primary and secondary sources and visual material, including photos of places visited. It also considers planning Reports and results of lively discussions with local residents, scholars, professionals, students, administrators and community leaders. The indirect evidence includes extant books and journal articles. The author devises a method of deductive, context-dependent, research. Particularly, this research gives attention to the exploration of the spatial fringe in between the university institution and the urban fabric. It is believed that this fringe can be the physical terrain for a landscape architecture project that suggests that re-thinking in-between sites is, in the cases here explored, a way to encourage a debate on the nature of the contemporary public space in America. It is often proposed that the design of the physical space influences social interaction and public spaces. In order to explore this relationship, I combine an interpretive context dependent approach. I focus on the study of Toomers's Corner, in Auburn, Alabama, which it is studied on multiple layers as well as in detail. This specific space has been selected for different reasons. Toomer's corner is now under a lens of observation. A group of local institutions, namely the University and the city, have recently shown a new interest to develop this space. Historically, this site represents the site where the university and the city merge. Toomers's corner is an 'iconic site' for both students and citizens. Furthermore, projects of different urban campuses are used as case studies. These projects include: the project of the recent Harvard's campus development in Alston, Boston, Massachusetts. Names here listed are part of a larger list of universities, which are currently engaged in a process of urban revitalization. The urban revitalization is a byproduct of the design of the campus. Campus design is an opportunity to create a better environment for all. In this regard, Harvard University has adopted strategies of densification of the buildings on campus. This strategy is the result of a precise university politic choice such as that to preserve the original urban character of Harvard in the 21st century. CASE STUDY OF A UNIVERSITY CAMpus Cha pter 2 Harvard had the opportunity to plan for decades of growth adjacent to its current campus. The campus plan transforms a neighborhood engaging a local community, The plan contributes to the development of Boston's metropolitan area. This Plan for Harvard in Allston is Harvard University's answer to this opportunity for change. Allston is a parcel of over 200 acres, which are south of and in close proximity to the present Cambridge, The University is planning for the future. In the next fifty years the new campus will extend as a cultural center on the historic riverfront. Harvard's goals are both academic and environmental. Harvard is planning for creating new and better apartments for both professors and students. Campus development is conceived to support interdisciplinary programs and inquiries that emerge on the boundaries of present's disciplines. Harvard's environmental stewardship focuses on greening a gigantic parking and truck lot. The Plan for Harvard in Allston is pedestrian traffic generator. It includes infrastructures for cyclists: sidewalks, bike paths, streets and river bridges. The plan redesigns the present transportation infrastructure with an extended shuttle system. Harvard's campus in Allston will consequently be for Allston, and by addition for the entire Boston. Main aim of this plan is Interlacing university and community to answer to the challenge of the 21st century. Aalston Campus, Harvard, Boston The idea of the campus and the city as a more integrated condition emerges in the Aalston Campus at Harvard (Source: Cooper, Robertson and Partners, 2013). In addressing the opportunities and challenges posed by the Allston Initiative, Harvard's planning process has been guided by a series of design principles and by a conceptual development program. The once depleted industrial area near of Allston nearby the Harvard is now the area on expansion for the new campus and an opportunity of experimentation for a more sustainable campus form Transformation of the old rail yard on the Charles riverfront to the Kennedy Park and Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Harvard in Allston poses a similar opportunity. Redesign the Charles's riverfront and the new Campus. The Plan for Harvard in Allston is comprised of consistent physical schemes, or outlines: Transportation, Open semi- public spaces, Sustainability, Services and Expansion. A collector street links the Cambridge and Allston campuses. North Harvard would be predominately bordered by the university. A new pedestrian bridge for bicyclists and transit allows a better access to the neighborhood. A student center is proposed to mark the entry into West of the roadway could be a broadened walkway and a two-way bike lane, each lined with trees. CRP/Gehry/Olin collaboration has advanced from information from within the Harvard community and, specifically, from faculty, staff, and students independently and through elected review directives. The Allston community and the North Allston Neighborhood Strategic Framework initiative contributed significantly to the development of the plan. (Source: Cooper, Robertson and Partners, 2013). Barry's Corner retail, public plaza and performance center The plan reduces cars on campus. At first, the campus is designed for the pedestrian, then bicycle and transit. Parking will be underground to keep cars from the neighborhood streets and center of campus and to diminish traffic activities across and along Avenues and streets nearby the campus. Substantial new public transit provision can be offered in Allston. Aalston Campus, Harvard, Boston (Source: Cooper, Robertson and Partners, 2013) tHE CASE OF AUBurn Cha pter 3 CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION The city of Auburn, Alabama, was selected as the focus of this study on the subject of campus/city design. This case was selected due to its close proximity to Auburn University, which- rich in culture and history-holds a key role in the regional economic asset. Auburn also holds a strategic position within Atlanta's economic region in Georgia. The town of Auburn was inhabited by a rural community up until World War II but is now mostly a dense community of nearly 50,000 people, comprised of low income African-American population. In recent years, the community has also experienced a growth of student population. Increasingly growing student housing and urban sprawl contributed to disperse the once rich urban patrimony of small business activities and recreational opportunities of downtown Auburn. The general aspect of this campus landscape is determined by the presence of the lawn. Furthermore, paved surfaces and brick buildings on campus play a big role in determining the general aspect of the university. The campus also offers a sense of spatial uniformity and continuity. Neo-traditional architecture dominates the campus landscape. New social points, lines and planes are in close proximity to the new student center that has been displaced from the northern edge of the campus to the center of the campus. This displacement is an important factor explaining the university's intentionality to create a centrality within the campus. However, this strategy does not create the condition, which is sufficient to increase urbanity on campus. A public land grant university is a public academic institution. This institution is funded by the state as well as by private foundations. Industries among those interested in developing technology can participate in the university's economic life. In the case of Auburn University activities among those related to sport play a big role in supporting the campus economy. Thus, sport dominates spaces and life on campus. For instances, in Auburn University's campus a number of stories and memories are visible. However, others stories are less clearly visible, such as those related to the evolution of the slave market and slave economy in Auburn. Rethinking Toomers' corner as a public space can help to activate a process of identification of a plethora of historic places throughout the campus. F r o m F a r m t o C a m p u s Planning, Politics, and the Agricultural College Concept in America The 'Land Grant Campus' idea is expressed here by famous American painter Grant Wood 1 8 7 1 Scholars put forward the idea that students may regularly encounter opportunity to use university campuses in a variety of ways and in a variety of cases. However, most research on the campus focuses on the necessity to open the campus landscape to a wider range of uses and practices: to diversify students' experience, to enhance local economy, to strengthen sense of place and sense of community. These studies reveal how experiencing urbanity has general positive implications for students. Indeed, these studies offer a counterpart to scholars among those have preferred to stress the conflicting relationship between campus and city. Comparatively, very little has been documented about possibilities and strategies to enhance urbanity on land grand campuses, which, in history, are predominantly scattered in suburban areas. Land Grant campuses are often too generically considered a very small minority in the national debate about the urban campus. However, academic departments or programs in suburban land gran campuses are highly visible at the larger regional level. Due to these frequent levels of underrepresentation, and the powerful linkage that exist between land grant campuses and local (and national) history, land grant campuses are in particularly strong position to offer new and valuable assets to the nearby city. The land grant campuses need to be rediscovered; their history needs to be re-discovered in relation to the history of the community (to be considered as a whole), and their edges need to be, when it is possible, re-considered in light of, old and new, instances of the society. These instances-I believe-need to be addressed in the space of the city. In this context, proximity of campus's property to the urban fabric need to be considered as an indicator of the potentiality of the landscape architect to welcome, to promote and to increase urbanity on campus. In addition, because lands grant campuses have more decades of experience in successfully navigating historic and institutional relationships with powerful partners, in the following sections, I briefly review the literature on university/ city planning and its evolution. I then discuss the current study and conclude with implication for research and practice. Historic and institutional evolution of the Auburn University. Three important steps of this evolution are listed here on the right. 1 8 5 4 Methodist college 1 8 5 9 Alabama Male college 1 8 7 1 Land Grant college Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, 1 8 9 3 Campus Plans 1 9 1 5 1 9 2 3 1 9 2 9 1 9 4 6 1 9 4 7 1 9 5 2 1 9 6 3 1 9 8 8 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 7 2 0 1 2 Campus Development 1 9 0 0 s 1 9 4 0 s 1 9 6 0 s 1 9 9 0 s 1900s 1940s 1960s 1990s AUBURN UNIVERSITY Founded POPULATION Undergraduate Graduate Total Student Faculty Staff Total LAND USE Land acres Parking spaces 2 0 1 3 1 8 5 6 2 0 1 3 1 9 3 6 7 4 1 8 0 2 3 5 4 7 1 1 3 9 4 4 4 5 2 9 1 3 1 1 8 4 3 1 1 0 0 0 METHOD O L O Gies Cha pter 4 I mention a number of landscape planning strategies that campus landscape designers have produced to give shape to the new landscape of the American University. These cases are considered at least of relevance to illustrate the generic condition of the landscape investigate here. This research relies on primary and secondary sources and visual material, including photos of places visited. It also considers planning Reports and results of lively discussions with local residents, scholars, professionals, students, administrators and community leaders. The indirect evidence includes extant books and journal articles. The author devises a method of deductive, context- dependent, research. Particularly, this research gives attention to the exploration of the spatial fringe in between university institution and the urban fabric. A Figure-Ground analysis show that Auburn university is a good example of the modernist metropolitan campus plan, an achieving principle that follows SPATIAL logics Even the pastoral idea of the Land Grant university is influenced by the urban model A pen + ink investigation show 1) The planning logic behind the pastoral idea that dominates the AU campus 2) The latent and informal aspect of the AU campus THE AU CAMPUS IS A POROUS FIGURE figures of porosity warped grid A porous grid AU c ampus grid social practices From another hand, site analysis show potential connection between the AU campus and Auburn RETHINKING T H E INBetween Cha pter 5 This chapter proposes to rethink and redesign a specific American in-between space. I will attempt to do that, in this manuscript, by conducting a critical interpretation of the American urban campus. Moreover, in this study urban campuses are considered grand assets for the entire community. These assets can be though as unique opportunities and in response to questions such as 'how we live together'. It is believed that this operation can offer a new insight of the way in which landscape architects conceive their practice and theory. I put forward this theory via the utilization of a set of design investigations, which I consider being at least important in challenging space and role of traditional planning approaches to campus planning in the United States. An interpretation that is made by the study of the In-Between, which I also consider of relevance to address possibilities of interpreting institutional cooperation as an indicator for the constitution of an idea of American city. In order to highlight the constitutive relation implied in this investigation, I have defined the object of this writing as opportunity to redesigning the city by rethinking liminal spaces, socio- institutional threshold and space of latent conflicts. The operation of rethinking of the 'In- Between'-within the environment in which it is conceived and constructed- is, in this work, intended to stress the self-referential character of a certain kind of architectural and planning practices and specifically, campus architecture and planning in the United States. But what is a space 'in-between'? One can argue that, an in-between space benefits both categories of groups and individuals that can make experiences and access to more institutionalized or more official spaces. Two important related ideas discussed in existing literature stress relations between spatial materiality and spatial communality. While spaces in- between and public spaces can be perceived as two very different types of spaces, the distinction between in- between spaces and the public space in existing literature are unclear. Scholars have used these term interchangeably. I some cases, scholars describe the space in-between as byproduct of the process of physical and spatial fragmentation that characterized the late twentieth-century city. I here define the in-between in a positive fashion. This is as an emotional, physical and comfortable space resulting from a complex stratification of stories, uses, and practices in the long run. Researchers have underlined the circumstance that spaces in in-between have significant socio-economic value as well as psychological ramifications. The description of the 'in-between' has been consequences of radicalized interactions between individuals or groups and their environment. Vigorously, this interaction emerges in the urban university environment in the first half of the twentieth century and in the 1960s. Rethinking and redesigning the space 'in- between' is a complex process that demands a series of operations and efforts of different nature. Designers must have knowledge of the strategies that they can use in specific situations and must also consider how these strategies may elicit particular effects and results in being further of less promoted. For example, design methods such as utilizing different feedbacks (community, environment) might led designers to experience additional complexion such as having to deal with the experience of a multitude of users and stakeholders while trying to rationalize the design process. Toomer's Corner The corner of the AU campus By introducing an element that deconstruct the idea of collective memory Through my design investigation I arrived at the notion of the campus without boundaries So I had a way to deconstruct Toomer's Corner: By introducing a burnt chamber and a mound in the corner of the AU campus It is believed that this fringe can be the physical terrain for a landscape architecture project that suggests that re-thinking in- between sites is a way to encourage a debate on the nature of contemporary public space. It is often proposed that the design of the physical space influences social interaction and public spaces. In order to explore this relationship, I combine an interpretive context dependent approach. I focus on the study of Toomers's Corner, in Auburn, Alabama, which it is studied on multiple layers as well as in detail. This specific space has been selected for different reasons. Toomer's corner is now under a lens of observation. A group of local institutions, namely the University and the city, have recently shown an new interest to develop this space. Historically, this site represents the site where the university and the city merge. Toomers's corner is an 'iconic site' for both students and citizens. 1st design investigation: The Corner of the campus is marked as an edge condition And show that Toomer's Corner as icon of the city on of the city design material Boundaries/thresholds A wide range of social practices occurs at Toomer's Corner. Any planning and design researcher must take this flexible and adaptive capacity into account j-walk skate blockage I blockage II j-walk gather talk regulate contain promote walk watch play sell contemplate protest climb walk admire design 2nd design investigation: An exploration of the corner without boundary An exploration of the Corner without boundaries the introduction of an organic form as a burnt chamber, which is in the corner of the AU campus The stem of a dead tree, which is in the corner of the campus The stem, which is carved and then burnt, it is a metaphor for regeneration A transition from carved stem to burnt chamber is represented in these figures The chamber is also composed by different wood's strata Expanding the idea of wood's strata into an organic form plan A completely new organic form, a burnt chamber, emerges in the corner of the campus The organic form and the actual urban scene in front of the corner of the campus generate a syncretic image the potential unbounded in a topographic form, which is in the corner of the AU campus Study of the corner of the campus as it is now A topography in Toomer's Corner creates a new situation of disturbance in the corner of the campus slow car traffic - redirect, pedestrian, relationship The topography as a mound evokes the distant Indian past of the city of Auburn. Deconstructs the typical image of the corner A view of the mound from the street The topography is designed to modify the perception of the campus in relation to the city LIMITATIONS A N D CONclusions Cha pter 6 In this work I offer a critical approach to the work of the landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Waltz (NBW), which recently has been called by the university to redesign Toomers' Corner. NBW proposes a design solution that is here illustrated. NBW's aim is that of changing uses and actual morphology of the corner. In this research I critic to this scheme. This critique draws upon the idea that, the institutional and the professional effort to redesign Toomer's corner is a positive signal of change in the discourse of campus and city planning. However, the proposed new plan cannot be considered the final one. The relationship between Auburn downtown and the Auburn University campus can be redefined by a plan that is comprehensive and that focuses on the idea of urbanism. Rethinking Toomer's Corner as a public space is influential for opening a public debate on the future of the Auburn's community: in manifold, but analytically submissive ways. The application of qualitative design method proves fruitful for understanding the complex phenomena that characterize the emergence of urban culture on campus. More research is needed in this direction. All the aspects underlined in this manuscript converge in the contemporary definition on the urban campus. Something integrated into the city, a model for urban design, an urban centrality and an agent of gentrification of the urban areas. In this book I have tried to give answer to questions that are related on the subject of campus/city design in the United States. In order to do that I focused on specific research question: How the relationship between Auburn downtown and the Auburn University campus can be redefined? This research is rooted in theory and concentrates on a large set of theories on the subject of city-campus design. In order to answer to more general questions, I focused on a specific case. I proposed a new scenario for the Auburn University campus. This scenario focuses on the idea of the campus without boundaries. In this way I have been able to conceive an image of the campus, which is freed of constrictions. Furthermore, this scenario gave me the opportunity to rethink the space between the campus and the city of Auburn. In this new perspective, the edge between the city and the campus was conceived as a continuum. I also suggested that relationship between Auburn downtown and the Auburn University campus can be redefined by introducing a new condition in the space in-between the campus and the city. In extreme syntesis one can say that the campus and the city often overlap. The campus has often been a model for the city, and that this is the root of my investigation. Furthermore, even the pastoral idea of the Land Grant University is influenced by the urban model. Auburn's historic maps very clearly show us how the initial condition of the university was eminently urban. Through my design investigation I arrived at the notion of the campus without boundaries. So I finally had a way to deconstruct Toomer's Corner, in Auburn downtown. Therefore, I introduced the idea of 'the burned chamber' and the 'mound' in the corner of the Auburn University campus. Finally, I lernt that a very simple 'non- urban' gesture can engage complex condition in this case. The relationship between the campus and the city can be reconsidered in Auburn. General outcomes that influence thinking and practices may come from the following question. How will this investigation change the city? More research is needed in this direction. Limitation and reflections come from question such as: Is this mainly a spatial project? The landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Waltz (NBW), which recently has been called by the university to redesign Toomers' Corner. NBW proposes a design solution that is here illustrated. A more free interpretation of the corner of the campus REF E R E NCES Cha pter 7 Allswang, J. M. (1987) Bosses, machines, and urban votes. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press. Altschuler, G. (1994) Science, state and higher education in America. Journal of Social History, (fall), pp. 147-153. Audrain, C. W. (1978) A review of planning at the University of Chicago. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Austrian, Z. & Norton, J. (2002) Urban universities and real estate development. Cleveland, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Centre for Economic Development. Barrett, C. W. (1973) The struggle to create a university. Publication of the University of Virginia, (49)4, pp. 494-506. Bender, T. (1975) Toward an urban vision: Ideas and institutions in nineteenth-century America. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press. Bender, T. (1988) The university and the city: From medieval origins to the present. New York, Oxford University Press. Blair, L. (1967) College and community: A study of interaction in Chicago. Chicago, Department of Urban Planning of the University of Illinois at Chicago Press. Block, J. F. (1983) The uses of Gothic: Planning and building the campus of the University of Chicago. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Bluestone, D. (2005) More than Mies: Architecture of Chicago multifamily housing. In: Waldheim, C. & Ray, K. R. (eds.) Chicago architecture: Histories, revisions, alternatives, pp. 82-93. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Bullock, N., Dickens, P. & Steadman, P. (1968) A theoretical basis for university planning. Cambridge, Cambridge Architecture Press. Bush-Brown, A. (1958) Image of a university: A study of architecture as an expression of education at colleges and universities in the United States between 1800 and 1900. Doctoral thesis. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, Department of Art and Archeology. Campos Calvo-Sotelo, P. (2002) El viaje de la utop a. Madrid, Complutense Press. Ciucci, G., Dal Co, F., Manieri Elia, M. & Tafuri, M. (1973) La citt Americana: dalla guerra civile al New Deal. Roma, Laterza. Corbin-Sies, M. & Silver, C. (1996) Planning the twentieth-century American city. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press. Dober, R. P. (1964) Campus planning. New York, Reinhold. Florida, R. (2005) The rise of the creative class. New York, Basic Books. Freeman, L. (1956) Hospital in action: The story of the Michael Reese Medical Center. New York, Rand & McNally. Giliberti, M. (2007) Da ivory tower a topos della citta: il campus tra isolamento ed integrazione nel Midwest America. Doctoral thesis. Venice, University IUAV of Venice, Faculty of Architecture. Giliberti, M. (2008) Merging campus and city planning in Chicago. Lecture presented at the Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Iowa, 9 September, Iowa City, Iowa, USA. Typescript. Hegemann, W. & Peets, E. (1922) The American Vitruvius: An architects' handbook of civic art. Braunschweig-Wiesbaden, Vieweg & Sohn. Isaac, R. R. (1951) A retrospective report on the activities of the Michael Reese Hospital planning staff: August, 1945-July, 1950. The Town Planning Review, 11(4), pp. 321-356. Jacobs, J. (1961) The death and life of great American cities. New York, Random House. Kenney, D. R. (2005) Mission and place: Strengthening learning and community through campus design. Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield Education. Kerr, C. (1995) The uses of the university. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Klauder, C. Z. & Wise, H. C. (1929) College architecture in America. New York, Scribner's Sons. Marcuse, P. & Potter, C. (2005) Columbia University's Heights: An ivory tower and its communities. In: Perry, D. C. & Wim Wiewel, W. (eds.) The university as urban developer: Case studies and analysis, pp. 45-64. New York, Sharpe. Mayfield, L., Hellwig, M. & Banks, B. (1999) The Chicago response to urban problems: Building university-community collaborations. American Behavioral Scientist, 42(5), pp. 863-875. Muthesius, S. (2000) The postwar university: Utopianianist campus and college. New Haven, CT, Yale. Noble, D. F. (1987) America by design: Science, technology, and the rise of corporate capitalism. New York, Oxford University Press. Parsons, K. C. (1963) A truce in war between universities and cities: A prologue to the study of city-university renewal. Journal of Higher Education, 34(1), pp. 16-28. Perry, D. C. & Wiewel, W. (2005) The university as urban developer: Case study and analysis. New York, Sharpe. Peterson, J. A. (2003) The birth of city planning in the United States, 1840-1917. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins. Polyzoides, S. (1996) On campus-making in America. Available at: http://www.mparchitects.com/articles/campusmaking.html (accessed 5 Jul. 2011). Pommer, R. (1988) In the shadow of Mies. New York, Art Institute of Chicago. Post-Ranney, V. (2000) Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing for democracy in the Midwest. In: William H. Tishler (ed.) Midwestern landscape architecture, pp. 41-57. Urbana, University of Illinois. Reps, J. W. (1981) The making of urban America. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Robertson, D. A. (1916) The University of Chicago. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Rosen, G. (1981) The siting of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle: A struggle of the 1950s and 1960s. Chicago History, 9(4), pp. 219-233. Saarinen, E. (1960b) Campus planning: The unique world of the university. Architectural Record, 128(11), pp. 123-130. Sharpless, I. (1915) The American college. New York, Doubleday, Page & Company. Shils, E. (1988) The university, the city, and the world: Chicago and the University of Chicago. In: Bender, T. (ed.) The university and the city: From medieval origin to the present, pp. 210-230. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Shook, J. (2000) Dewey's empirical theory of knowledge and reality. Nashville, TN, Vanderbilt University Press. South Side Planning Board (1951) A redevelopment proposal for the central South Side: Chicago. Chicago. Tafuri, M. (1980) Architecture and utopia: Design and capitalist development. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press. Tewksbury, D. G. (1965) The founding of American colleges and universities before the Civil War. New York, Archon. Thwing, C. F. (1883) American colleges: Their students and work. New York, Putnam's Sons. Turner, P. V. (1984) Campus: An American planning tradition. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press. Weber, R., Theodore, N. & Hoch, C. (2005) Private choices and public obligations: The ethics of university real estate development. In: Perry, D. C. & Wim Wiewel, W. (eds.) The university as urban developer. Case studies and analysis, pp. 285-299. New York, Sharpe. White, M. G. & White, L. (1962) The intellectual versus the city: From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Winling, L. (2011) Students and the second ghetto: Federal legislation, urban politics, and campus planning at the University of Chicago. Journal of Planning History, 2(10), pp. 59-86. Zunz, O. (2002) Why the American century? Chicago, University of Chicago Press. AcKNOW L E D GMENT Cha pter 8 I would like to thank to Rodney Barnett and to Jocelyn Zanzot for their support and for their critical assistance. The following individuals have been essential in determining the body of the manuscript: Giulio Ernesti, Bernardo Secchi, Laura Mascino, and Michael Robinson. The Program in Landscape architecture of the Auburn University has been a welcoming environment for the advancement of the investigation. Fundamental discussions with Ricard Pie Ninot have much influenced this thesis.