Duke University
Campus Population Model
In 2006, Duke University sought to redevelop almost all of the existing buildings on its Central Campus to create a vibrant, mixed-use community that would cater to upper-class students who would have the opportunity to live, learn, work, and play in an urban environment. In the fall of 2006, Brailsford & Dunlavey was retained to help analyze how the proposed plan would combine different types of activities on Central Campus, and to help produce a dynamic, three-dimensional video model simulating activity on the proposed new campus.
The ambitious redevelopment plan included more than 1 million square feet of new space, including academic, residential, retail, student services, food services, and other types of spaces. The redevelopment would include replacement of 800 existing beds with apartments that would eventually accommodate 1,600 upper-class, graduate, and professional students. Other unique features of Central Campus would include theater and library spaces, new Career and Alumni centers, and a variety of new restaurant venues. B&D's role was to collect and analyze existing time-scaled usage data for each of these activities, consolidate growth expectations by each type of activity, and based on this information, project expected activity throughout a 24-hour period on an average weekday. The data model was designed to be flexible so that refinements to the development plan could be entered into the model as the project progressed.
B&D then worked with Workshop Architects to graphically represent the activity. The architectural drawings for the proposed redevelopment were color-coded by activity type and were animated such that the building shapes grew as more people were inside at that particular time of day. All of this activity was set to music in a succinct two-minute video.
The resulting graphical outputs were used to illustrate to the Board of Trustees the vitality and mix of activities involved in the proposed redevelopment plan, and to aid in the decision-making process of whether to proceed as planned. The video also was used to facilitate discussions with key student leaders to gather input about the future of Central Campus.
