Form Follows Function: Height, Symbolism, and Function on University Campuses

Keywords: higher education, height, volume, architecture, built enviorment
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 16

Abstract

If we accept the old design aphorism that “form follows function,” what does it mean for height to exist on a university campus? As higher education has emerged as a key driver in spatial processes horizontally—everything from campus expansion, to the studentification of neighborhoods surrounding campus, to the development of branch campuses both online and around the world—the construction of new vertical height on a university campus reflects the assertion of a different type of spatial ideology. This paper traces height on campus from the first spires of Oxford and Cambridge, to the first volumetric “office towers” developed for higher education in the 1920s in the United States, to the bifurcated nature of height and volume on campuses around the world today. In this paper, I argue that through an analysis of height and volume on university campuses, it is possible to see the changing conceptions of higher education, the administrative organization of campus activities, and the role of higher education in society. As higher education grapples with an increasingly unpredictable future (increased neoliberalization, the post-truth era, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and coming demographic shifts among others) the design of buildings both built and planned allow us to reflect on these spatial ideologies made physical.