"Bubble Goo" Strategic Planning Case Study: The Strategic Exercise Provided the Opportunity to Formulate Concepts and Create Frameworks for Student Life Space and Experience, All While Defining a Program for the Transformation of the Campus Center (2013)

CAMPUS PLANNING PROJECTS OFTEN BEGIN with a visioning exercise to identify project goals and a collective understanding of the problem at hand. In the instance of a proposed campus center renovation at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, the visioning exercise was preceded by a research-oriented fact-finding trip, which in turn informed the development of a visioning session unique to Rollins' conditions and committee. The collaboration between EYP and Rollins College that created this innovative approach to project understanding and design, Goo, began with long-term strategic planning to better understand the relationship of the proposed renovation to other neighborhood buildings. The process began with an enlightened approach by Rollins' project leadership team to identifying a student life project partner. Rollins' approach, led by the institution's special assistant to the president and director of facilities, involved conducting half-day tours and work sessions with short-listed firms to better understand how they worked as well as observing the campus holistically and developing ideas for repositioning and transforming the Cornell Campus Center. During this time of exploration, clear patterns started to emerge relative not only to how Rollins approached capital projects, but also to how the thinking related to the campus center was so integrally linked to a holistic approach to student life on campus. Embracing the notion of a strategic thinking phase, EYP began with an investigation to better understand the four primary buildings that hosted portions of non-residential student life activity as well as administrative functions: Cornell Campus Center, Olin Library, and Mills Memorial and Chase Halls. While documenting the existing spaces and how they were used, the design team immediately noticed evidence of disparate and circumstantial space planning that collocated groups, activities, departments, and student life amenities, thus creating a fractured student life experience on campus. Key questions then emerged for the design team that investigated and challenged student life mission, adjacencies, and possible campus synergies. BUBBLE GOO EYP was faced with two primary challenges: (1) working with a committee of approximately 20 people, all with differing perspectives, and (2) developing a working methodology that would advance student life strategic thinking in order to best position the pending Cornell Campus Center renovation project. The response was to create a half-day visioning exercise that allowed the entire team to work together in real time to simultaneously dive deeper into the issues. The strategic exercise also provided the opportunity to formulate concepts and create frameworks for student life space and experience, all while defining a program for the transformation of the campus center. The need to design a working methodology that would address Rollins' unique issues drove the creation of the Bubble Goo exercise. The design team wanted to create a tactile, fluid, interactive design process by which members of the committee could understand the current student life experience through a new lens and speculate about what it could be. To achieve this, EYP created pieces and color-coded different spaces, activities, and groups by their respective roles within student life on a canvas board. The team then set up the conceptual lens through which the game would be played. …