Hargreaves Associates worked with the University of Cincinnati over a two-decade period in the development of an initial master plan and two updates to that plan to adapt to evolving campus needs and University goals. The realization of the plans led to a transformation of the campus from one of a commuter campus – dominated by roads and parking lots, to a pedestrian-oriented campus with new buildings and open spaces that created a dynamic campus that now promotes the quality of student life. “Following a brilliant master plan by landscape architects Hargreaves Associates, that campus heart now beats 24/7” – Blair Kamin, Chief Architecture Critic for the Chicago Tribune.

The firm’s role with the University was as both master planners and design landscape architects for specific open space projects. This long-term relationship underscored the success of the master plan as a living, resilient document and tool for use by the University.

The master planning strategy is based on a series of connections or “force fields” that emphasize the pattern of historic quadrangles and guide new infill development within a cohesive and connective tissue of open spaces and reinforces the campus quads as organizing spaces for the buildings around them, while weaving the character of the adjacent forest, Burnet Woods, throughout the campus. The plan reasserts the campus as an active pedestrian precinct conducive to student and faculty interaction, study and play and recognizes that the physical environment strongly influences the educational experience.