Notre Dame, Indiana
Western Edge of Notre Dame Campus
Fall 2001
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Approaching the Golden Dome from the south, visitors encounter a series of defined spaces that alert them to where they are and what goes on there. The entrance allows cars but remains pedestrian- and community-oriented. By contrast, the campus´s western edge suffers from a lack of well-defined space, with its main features being Highway 933 – a high-speed barrier five lanes wide that separates Notre Dame from St. Mary´s, Holy Cross, and the Roseland neighborhood – and a vast surface parking lot just east of 933 with a bleak and uninviting entrance.
First impressions count. Many students, faculty, and visitors travel by car and exit the Indiana Toll Road at the Notre Dame exit. The western edge of Notre Dame is their first view of the campus. This studio envisioned a series of gradual improvements that would accommodate the next century of growth over the short term (10 years), medium term (50 years), and long term (100 years). Using ideas and tools drawn from architecture, landscape architecture, transportation planning, and urban redevelopment, students proposed ways of creating a more sustainable and walkable community – one that would present a welcoming face to the larger South Bend community, and one that would offer many different kinds of housing as well as a train station, parish church, theater, museum, grocery, hotel, and banquet hall.
