Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Smith College, MNLA Partner for 20-Year Landscape Master Plan

  • By Matt Jones
  • 09/29/22

Smith College in Northampton, Mass., recently partnered with landscape architecture firm MNLA to complete a 20-year landscape master plan for its 147-acre campus. The original campus of the private women’s liberal arts college measured 27 acres and was planned and founded as a botanical garden, according to a news release. The new plan is set to modernize the design to meet the current and future needs of the campus, students, faculty and staff.

The news release reports that the new plan “recalibrates the relationship between humans and their environment” and builds off of four foundational pillars of inclusive, adaptive, educational and connected landscapes. MNLA and Smith involved collaboration with Smith community members, including on-campus engagement sessions and interactive student projects, to get input at each stage of development.

The three districts of the Smith campus—River, Core and Town—will have its own aesthetic based on its own history, locality, cultural influences and ecology. “Mutually dependent landscape systems—circulation, land cover, hydrology and cultural systems—form a matrix within the campus, grounding the landscape and connecting it to its regional context,” said the press release. The new master plan will bring out the uniqueness of each district while still weaving together a cohesive campus feel.

Many of the plan’s individual projects have already been developed in detail, while small pilot projects are ready for implementation as a proof of concept and to test certain space transformations that could lead to longer-term initiatives.  Larger-scale projects will lay the seeds for the future of the campus and landscape.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Preparing for the Next Era of Healthcare Education, Innovation

    Across the country, public universities and community colleges are accelerating investments in healthcare education facilities as part of a broader strategy to address workforce shortages, modernize outdated infrastructure, and expand clinical training capacity. These projects, which are often located at the center of campus health and science districts, are no longer limited to traditional classrooms.

  • Spaces4Learning Trends & Predictions for Educational Facilities in 2026: Part I

    We asked, you answered, and the results are in! Last year, we put out a call for submissions to collect our readership’s opinion on trends and predictions for K–12 and higher education facilities in 2026.

  • Houston-Area High School Breaks Ground on 117,000SF Multi-Use Facility

    North Shore Senior High School, part of Galena Park ISD in Houston, Texas, recently broke ground on a new multi-use facility for student extracurriculars, according to a news release. The North Shore Multi-Use Facility will include dedicated practice and training space for the school’s athletics and fine arts programs.

  • Photo credit: Elkus Manfredi Architects

    University of Virginia Selects Design-Build Team for New Residential Complex

    The University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., recently announced that it has selected a design-build team for a new upper-class residential development on campus, according to a news release. Capstone Development Partners—in partnership with Elkus Manfredi Architects and the Hoar Construction/Hourigan construction team—will move forward with the three-building, 310,000-square-foot housing facility.