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Planning Principles

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Community

Through Framework 3.0, Ohio State intends to:

  • Increase equity of student experience through modernization of instructional space and on-campus housing. 
  • Provide updated, flexible spaces that support teaching and research excellence.  
  • Reflect the diversity of the university’s people, places and programs on campus. 

Community is supported by establishing interdisciplinary, mixed-use hubs that promote learning, research, and discourse. These hubs can be created through building renovations, selective demolition, and new construction that replaces outdated facilities and provides modern and flexible space to meet current and emerging needs.  

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Experience

Through the framework plan, Ohio State intends to: 

  • Implement/enhance wayfinding from highway to hallway.
  • Enhance arrivals by leveraging campus branding opportunities at edges and gateways.
  • Explore partnerships to supplement campus amenities for faculty, staff, and the campus community. 

Legibility is the experience of intuitively understanding the campus’s physical organization based on the built environment. A legible campus is one that has been thoughtfully planned and considered at multiple scales. By creating a legible campus with clear edges and landmarks, we create an improved experience for all visitors to campus. 

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Stewardship

Through Framework 3.0, Ohio State intends to: 

  • Increase net assignable research space. Decrease net assignable office space. 
  • Address deferred maintenance and renewal with each project. 
  • Achieve alignment between physical and strategic plans. 

Space use in higher education settings changes over time in response to technology, emerging disciplines, and changing workplace norms. The 2020 global pandemic accelerated many of these changes. Buildings must be maintained, renovated, or demolished to continue supporting changes to programmatic space needs. 

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Connectivity

Through Framework 3.0 Ohio State intends to: 

  • Develop activated public spaces that are functional, cohesive and beautiful. 
  • Adopt Complete Street concepts in roadway design. 
  • Engage the river to enhance connectivity and user experience.

Students, alumni, faculty, staff and community members each feel a unique connection to the Ohio State University. It is important that as the university changes and expands, people continue to feel as though they can easily navigate the campus and find their destinations with relative ease.