Clusters, Internal Malls, Plazas and Green Spaces
Territoriality is man's ancient drive. We identify ourselves with a piece of turf, we call it home, we defend it. This identification with a piece of land and a group of people is an unalienable part of the tribal conscience of our social mechanism by which we build our loyalties, associations and identity. No matter how distant we pride ourselves to be from our animal instincts, ignoring them will court a price we have to pay sooner or perhaps later, but pay we must. To put territoriality in campus terms, New Mexico State University is too large an entity with its 14,000 students to form close alliances across the entire body and to identify with it emotionally. We are all Americans but we are also New Mexicans, Las Cruceans, Aggies, and we are also associated with, let us say, the College of Agriculture. We also have our clubs, our families and our circle of friends. It is easier to develop an intimate relationship with one or three buildings, and the people associated with them, than with dozens of buildings and thousands of people. The human scale and balance is exceeded at a certain point in the growth of a university, and we have long ago reached that point. Yet, we can preserve the balance if we consciously define smaller units within the university.
To foster the beneficial association with a defined group of people in the academic surrounding, we are proposing to define the academic clusters as clearly as possible, and to provide amenities for individual colleges, primarily outdoor spaces. The accompanying diagram shows the proposed division of the campus into clusters. Several colleges are well defined: Agriculture, Engineering, Business, Education, and Human and Community Services. The Arts and Sciences College, because it has the most students on campus, is spread over the whole quadrangle because of the multitude of its departments.
In addition to the academic clusters, the facility lends itself to a division into smaller segments that can be developed with their own outdoor amenities.
Each cluster should be defined in some way. Whether it is a psychological or a physical barrier is irrelevant, but it needs to be perceived as separating the particular cluster from others without making it exclusive or removing it from the family of colleges that is NMSU. A good negative example is Espina street, which grew into a physical and, eventually, a psychological barrier separating the College of Agriculture from the rest of the Institution.
Each cluster will have its own green space where one can sit in a shade and reestablish his or her tie to nature. In the desert that surrounds Las Cruces, green space is a special treat. We do not need to fill the campus with greenery, it is wasteful of water and expensive to maintain, but we ought to provide an opportunity to find an oasis in the dryness of the land in it.
The other important feature each cluster should have is a plaza, a gathering space, a central space where people can meet, sit in the autumn sun, a place to be identified as the center of the college cluster. In our climate, it is often the outside space that serves as the living space, and we go to buildings to fulfill specific functions such as classes, to sleep, etc. Outdoor spaces are like buildings without roofs, buildings with walls of other buildings surrounding it. We need to look at the outdoor spaces that way to design them as functional, attractive and useful.
Many activities can take place in the Plazas. Besides meeting and talking, there can be information kiosks, concerts, plays, meetings, even outdoor classes, art shows, exhibits, dances, parties, receptions, competitions, and award meetings.
Each college is different and the appearance of the plazas and green spaces should reflect its individual character. The plaza should be at the intersection of internal malls. And each plaza should be connected to the main malls that criss- cross the university and connect all colleges together.
The concept of a plaza and a green space are not new. European villages had their village square and their commons for hundreds of years. The commons later developed into parks, but the squares remained and still play a key civic function. European villages also have their cathedral that identifies the center of the town from afar and gives the community an identity. We are coming back to these ancient concepts. We do not have a cathedral, but we have the Memorial Tower and the Goddard Tower, and soon we will have the new library.