Field Studies - Growing a Biogenic Campus

With Nelson, Bird, Woltz Landscape Architects,

Awarded First Place, The Resilient Campus Competition

The University at Buffalo

Buffalo, NY

Field Studies, the winning entry in The Resilient Campus competition, envisions a regenerative South Campus for the University at Buffalo that evolves to meet human and bioregional needs over the next half century and beyond. The design comprises interdependent systems that create balance, allow for shocks and recovery, and are capable of adapting to constant change.

Field Studies manifests three primary strategies: Interdependent Systems, Biodiverse and Multivalent Landscapes, and Biogenic Architecture. The design interweaves buildings, landscapes, and infrastructures, enlivens the campus for multi-species inhabitation, participates in natural cycles, and grows with local and regional ecologies. The landscape provides biomaterials for construction, ecosystems are designed to sequester carbon and incorporate geothermal wells, and gardens provide education and nutrition. The campus grows its own architecture; on-site or regionally cultivated plant-based materials provide for the construction and renovation of buildings, reducing embodied carbon and increasing thermal performance. The campus becomes a gradient of layered indoor and outdoor environments that respond to shifts in climate and provide for year-round use.

Rather than a rigid masterplan, the proposal establishes a responsive framework in which infrastructure, architecture, and landscape are co-evolving; a vision of radical reciprocity between humans and ecologies, creating a model for a vital campus that embraces a regenerative relationship to our shared environment.

Type

Reuse Biogenic

Credits

Client: The University at Buffalo, The Resilient Campus Competition
Project Team: LTL Architects: Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, David J. Lewis; Anna Knoell, Bruce Liang, Patty Hazel, Kyle Reich, Michelle Schneider, Nelson, Bird, Woltz Landscape Architects: Thomas Woltz, Lanie McKinnon, Kelly Waters, Molly Gaspare, Johnathan Berlin, Cole Thornton, Cong Nie
Environmental Consultant: Derive: NIall Cooper, Michael Huang, Marie Rottaschaefer