(click images to enlarge)
	Proposal A More traditional: formal, traditional, finite spaces, axes, symmetry Large-scale view of Proposal A

Educational, philosophical, ideological vision
We're familiar with the classic polarity between the "market" and the "monastery." It's the one Nancy Cantor invoked last week. Jane Jacobs, the great urban theorist, uses the "commercial" vs. the "guardian" syndrome. They're very helpful metaphors or analogues for the competing forces and values in a university.

The "market" is a network. It provides freedom, multiplicity, overlap, ambiguity, and importantly, redundancy. It's not a tree, which is linear and hierarchical (like a family tree-a limited social network in which you'd get to interact only with your parents and kids (and their friends)-sound familiar to you soccer moms and dads?) A tree, by the way is a good organization for developing a new product or winning a war, but almost helpless at building a community or a nation, or winning the peace. (Sound familiar?) In any case, a University needs the vibrant trade, innovation and friction of the marketplace.

The monastery is a sanctuary from the press of daily life, suitable for spiritual or scholarly contemplation and quieter social exchange, even for silence in some sects. It tends to be more static, hierarchical, tradition-bound and shuns commercial trade.

So, it's the ubiquitous balancing act, like so much in life.

Not definitive plans, but illustrative plans, based on the vision I have elaborated. As Hank Baier also said in the Daily article about N. Campus last Friday, a plan is never finished just as there are no master narratives, there are no "master" plans; they are only snapshots in an evolving situation, but without illustrative drawings, most people feel lost.

Here's what it means for the North Campus to be less sanctuary, and more commerce (but with a reasonable balance) • More of a 24/7/365 atmosphere (but not honky tonk)     • A walkable scale (Surface parking for 10,000 people prevents a compact, walkable scale-in fact it is absolutely incompatible with physical community. Parking decks are as essential on the North Campus as they are on the Central Campus or downtown Ann Arbor. Decant those structures into surface parking, and see what those place looks like!     • More retail, more mixed use, less functional purity, more architectural variety. This will result in less energy and resource consumption (Merced, CA. Campus-energy consumed by students + faculty commuting to campus, and leaving for lunch, errands, etc. was 6x energy consumption by building).           (click images to enlarge)   Proposal B More Modernist: informal, less finite spaces, open axes, asymmetrical but by no means "cutting edge." Large-scale view of Proposal B     • More housing of all sorts (compact)     • More honorific, public buildings, such as the Walgreen Center     • More student dorms, even a residential college     • If destination is the first of 3"Ds," we also need places to have a "date" and buy a "drink!" The North Campus needs a little "sin" as Robert Venturi observed.     • A finer-grained network for vehicles. The routes for cars are circuitous and counter-intuitive. In general, more destinations, especially voluntary ones (as opposed to classrooms and fac. offices)     • We are making progress (as Lester Monts, Jim Duderstadt, Hank Baier point out)—improved Pierpont Commons, 2 new engineering buildings, Arthur Miller Theater, and a new dorm are already being discussed or in the works, etc.— small things like the Mujo Café in Media Union (thanks to John King)