University of California, San Diego
PAE-3: Physical Campus Plan

UC San Diego's 1989 Master Plan Study contains five organizing principles for the campus that help to guide its development. These principles are: neighborhoods, academic corridors, a university center, the park, and connections. Each of these organizing principles help to foster sustainability in physical planning. First, the neighborhood principle states that the development of UC San Diego should occur in neighborhoods, or a unit of development with distinct character with academic, housing, dining, recreation, and community services, open space, and transportation connections. This neighborhood principle has helped to guide a new housing complex, The Village. The project, which includes a high density 14-story tall residential tower, contains housing and dining services and located a short walk from RIMAC, UC San Diego's athletic facility, and classrooms in the Social Science and Humanities academic corridors. The academic corridor principle states that new academic facilities should be developed across neighborhood boundaries to bring together related academic departments to facilitate collaboration between students, faculty, and staff and provide a basis for the location of new academic facilities. This academic corridor principle has helped to create a walk able academic campus. UC San Diego is designed to promote walking between classes, with the maximum distance between classrooms bring approximately a ten minute walk. The university center principle states that UC San Diego should be created around a university center that will be the hub of student, faculty, and staff activity. This university principle has helped to create Price Center, which serves as an indoor and outdoor community center that provides dining services, study spaces, and places to meet and congregate. The park principle states that the shoreline, mesas, canyons, and eucalyptus groves are ecologically sensitive areas with abundant natural resources, and they should be treated as a park and preserved. This Park principle has helped guide the development of UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) to allow for steady state growth needs while preserving native and environmentally sensitive habitat. SIO's status as a leader in environmental research is reflected in its design that has worked to evolve with its natural coastal landscape. Lastly, the connections principle states that roads, paths, public entries, and view corridors should work to connect all neighborhoods of UC San Diego so that the campus can function as one single unit. These connections principle has helped to foster UC San Diego's alternative transportation. UC San Diego is a pedestrian and bike and skateboard friendly campus. While there are shuttle stops strategically placed throughout campus, vehicular traffic is directed to the outside of campus, leaving the inside of campus open for safe and efficient pedestrian and bike travel.