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A Landscape Design Plan for East Campus

Geoffrey Mock

Campus landscape planners hope to do battle with the cow paths that cross East Campus and make the freshman campus more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.

 

As part of a design presented this spring to trustees, planners suggest changing the direction of vehicle traffic on the East Campus circle road, move the location of the bus stop and develop a pedestrian system that make it a "walkable campus."

 

The work is part of an overall effort to provide landscape guidelines for all of the different precincts on Duke's campus. Simply put, Duke as a great university should have a campus design that reflects that.

 

Design guidelines for West and Central campuses have already been presented. The work builds upon ideas and goals outlined in Duke University's 2000 Master Plan.

"While the general impression of East Campus is a positive one, we wanted to bring the landscape to the level it should be," said campus landscape designer Mark Hough.

The main elements of the East Campus plan include:

 

  • Constructing sidewalks to replace "cow paths" -- dirt routes that develop where pedestrians regularly walk off the sidewalk to a specific destination.

     

  • Creating a tree-lined pedestrian walkway to Broad Street.

     

  • Reversing the direction of travel around Trinity Circle and having cars and buses go the usual clockwise direction. Currently vehicles go counterclockwise around the circle.

     

  • Relocating the bus dropoff point on Trinity Circle .

     

  • Providing a paved bicycle circulation system that both leads to the rest of the Duke campus and ties in with Durham and providing more bicycle storage space on campus.

     

  • Preparing to replace dying trees throughout the campus (see accompanying story).

     

The plan is not a proposal and comes with no specific dollar figures, Hough said, but it already has prompted discussion about East Campus design.

"The goal is to try to have some consistency and coherence in landscape design so it all feels like it's the same campus," Hough said. "We call it landscape design, but it's about a lot more than plants. It's about, for example, Duke as a walkable campus so you end up with good pedestrian and bicycle circulation systems. We're thinking about how you provide services and service areas. It's really thinking about everything outside of buildings."