University architecture
Just after I took up my post as President of DCU, I invited an old friend to visit me there. I collected him from the airport one evening and drove him back to the university. We approached the campus along Collins Avenue (for those who know Dublin and DCU); it was 9 pm in the autumn, and it was dark. ‘Oh’, he said, ‘this looks like an oil refinery’. And maybe it did, a little. At the time we were building several new buildings along the road, and the scaffolding and cranes were lit up, and it did indeed look very industrial.
Some eight years later it is no longer like that. The buildings (or at least those under construction at the time) have long been completed, and the campus is, even if I say it myself, rather attractive – for a modern university. It has been carefully planned, and the clusters of buildings in DCU are laid out in such a way as to provide good interaction between the occupants, and also so as to leave some open spaces to avoid the campus seeming claustrophobic and so as to give some room to the human spirit. The campus is clean (mostly), and there are flower beds and other decorative features. I am very proud of DCU.
But as I visit universities both in Ireland and overseas, I am often struck by the rather poor quality of the visible infrastructure. Often I will find an old university with magnificent old buildings that have clearly been neglected, with new buildings pushed in next to them with little regard for the resulting aesthetics. New buildings are often badly maintained and show signs of ageing even before the snagging list has been attended to. And all too often I find a campus that seems to show no sense of the human dimension of what we do.
Why are we so bad at this? Some of the old universities worldwide often have inherited beautiful and grand buildings, occupying a campus that in modern times has clearly not been designed to be sympathetic to this heritage. Newer universities are often struggling with not-fit-for-purpose buildings constructed during the dark ages of design (from the middle of the 20th century until recently). And time and again I find myself looking round a campus that has clearly not benefited from a master plan of any value.
Of course there are also wonderful campuses, that have been well designed and planned and whose buildings and amenities clearly support the professional work being carried out there. And where this has succeeded it is not always just because there has been lots of money to spend – I have seen some universities which have clearly been able to make the most of modest resources.
Our physical environment is a crucial aspect in our ability to find fulfilment in our work. We need to be both comforted and stimulated by it – and certainly not depressed or overwhelmed. We need to get good not just at designing individual buildings, but also at ensuring that the campus as a whole reflected and supports our values. This should be one of the most important tasks for any university management team.
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University Blog 
August 26, 2008 at 8:03 am
This is an issue that affects much of our culture – as a country we have a peculiar relationship with the arts, aesthetics and beauty for their own sake. The economic or ‘value for money’ argument is always at the forefront and pragmatism is perceived to be a more valuable attribute than ideas or intellectualism.
August 28, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Well, DCU is not entirely attractive. I agree that it is well planned, and well laid out, and a pleasant environment in which to get around (and I assume in which to do some work). But there is a real problem, one that almost everyone entering the campus will encounter, and that is the entrance on Collins Avenue. In the space between the multi-story car-park and the impressive new Nursing Building, there is hoarded up ancillary building site and an unevenly tarred road leading to a difficult roundabout. Together, these create a rather dismal first impression that the rest of the campus has to work hard to put right. Of course, many vehicular entrances to many major buildings are not very pretty, as they are often around the corner from the impressive main – pedestrian – entrances, but that is not the case in DCU, where the Collins Avenue entrance is the main entrance. I wonder what your friend might think of the entrance today under these conditions?
The previous paragraph demonstrates that I agree with the basic thrust of the post that maintenance and enhancement of the physical fabric of the architectural infrastructure ought to be part of the university’s mission. But it is often difficult to find the funds for such ongoing maintenance. They are rarely part of government grants; and donors prefer to put their names on shiny new buildings rather than have their money go to less tangible upkeep.