Restructuring of the University of New South Wales

Abstract

Prior to the recent near completion of a major building programme, the campus of the University of New South Wales in Sydney was widely regarded as functioning poorly and as an unpleasant place to be. This article describes the fairly tough development planning process that was followed consistently over a period of 15 years to transform the way it functions and how it looks. It covers the process of formulating and gaining support for the strategy and describes the principles, criteria and actions that guided locating activities, provision of facilities, design and design review, traffic and parking and the responsibilities for management and decision making. The development strategy was simply expressed and although it contained desired end state images and words, it was essentially action oriented; deliberately avoiding the pit falls of the end state master plan. After describing the strategy and providing some illustration of its outcomes the author sets out his reasons for its acclaimed success.