Campus Edges
The Public Image of Case
In his address to the Global Summit on the 21st Century Campus in Berkeley, California, May 2003, President Hundert commented that “By orienting the fronts of our buildings to the all-important ‘quad,’ what we do is point the backs of all our buildings to
our community – to our potential partners.” This
dichotomy is strikingly apparent at Case, where
functions such as parking and service docks are
visible from almost every major public edge of the
campus.
 Even in areas where the campus has a lively and
thriving core landscape, such as the Case Quad,
there is almost no visual permeability of this interior
space to the public passerby. Further, many of the
public edges of the campus are disconnected from
the interior by drastic grade changes and functions
unwelcoming to pedestrians. Campus edges need to
be developed without creating barriers and walls, as
had been the approach to city and campus planning
in earlier decades. Edges must be implied through
careful configuration of landscape and buildings with
more than one “front door” to allow continued
growth of the campus environment and improved
integration with surrounding context.
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