Planning by the Numbers: Norwich University 2019

Planning by the Numbers: NU2019

What decision-making criteria drive planning and design for higher education?

Beauty?

Joy?

Sustainability?

Inquiry?

Craft?

Experience?

Narrative?

Ideology?

Sublime?

Systems?

Although all of these qualities can contribute to great planning and design for higher education …

… these qualities alone do not drive decisions.

Higher education clients are inherently …

Conservative

Competitive

“Good innovators typically think very big and they think very small. New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look … … And they are sometimes found when you are doing your most abstract and philosophical thinking, considering why the world is the way that it is and whether there might be an alternative to the dominant paradigm. Rarely can they be found in the temperate latitudes between the two spaces, where we spend 99 percent of our lives.”

Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise

“Good innovators typically think very big and they think very small. New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look …

Data

… And they are sometimes found when you are doing your most abstract and philosophical thinking, considering why the world is the way that it is and whether there might be an alternative to the dominant paradigm. Rarely can they be found in the temperate latitudes between the two spaces, where we spend 99 percent of our lives.”

Vision

Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise

1915

Data

1915 2200

Data

1915 2200 2400

Data

parking

1915 2200 2400

Data

parking

1915 2200 2400 dining hall

Data

parking

1515/400

1915 2200 2400 dining hall

Data

parking

1515/400

2000/200 beds

1915 2200 2400 dining hall

Data

parking

1515/400

2000/200 beds

1915 2200 2400

classrooms and labs dining hall

Data

parking

1515/400

2000/200 beds

1915 2200 2400

classrooms and labs dining hall faculty offices admin support

Data

parking

1515/400 athletics 2000/200 beds

1915 2200 2400

classrooms and labs dining hall faculty offices admin support

Data

student activities

parking

1515/400

athletics 2000/200 beds

1915 2200 2400

classrooms and labs dining hall faculty offices admin support

Data

student activities

parking

1515/400

athletics 2000/200

1915 2200 2400

beds

classrooms and labs dining hall faculty offices admin support

infrastructure

Data

Data

Vision

Vision

Vision

Vision

Vision

Vision

Vision

Vision

Vision

Data

Data

Data

Data

Data

“The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth.”

Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise