Purdue Trustees say the school now has a plan for the next 50 years of redevelopment on the West Lafayette main campus. Adam Gross, an architect whose firm has been developing the plans for the last two years, says he’s hoping to bring disparate design philosophies together across campus.
“Weave the campus together and, because I mentioned, make the island more of a bridge," Gross says. "And kind of making one campus from these five somewhat distinct districts.”
Gross says he wants to connect isolated parts, such as campus buildings, residence halls and buildings south of State Street, into a unified whole.
Alongside new building construction, renovations are scheduled for at least a dozen existing buildings.
Gross and his team spent 18 months collecting data, entering academic buildings and measuring dimensions of classrooms and lobbies as well as assigning grades to furniture and equipment.
Included in the transformation are potential residence halls that Gross’s team hopes will line Martin Jischke Drive.
Friday’s presentation did not directly address Purdue’s dorm overcrowding problem of the last several years, which has led some students to bunk in conference rooms and near loading docks.
