The Big Idea

The “Big Idea”

The University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning houses the three disciplines which have come together for this project. The overlapping yet unique disciplines of Urban Planning, Real Estate Development, and Historic Preservation are all well positioned to analyze and weigh in on a complex project such as this. The historic reuse and renovation of the Richardson Olmsted Campus draws on the skills of each of these disciplines and when brought together have a depth of knowledge that could not be achieved by a single discipline. The graduate students in each of these fields of study bring a distinct toolset to this project. The Urban Planning students are well equipped to consider the entirety of the Richardson Olmsted Campus and how it functions. They are also considering the physical interaction, gateways and connections with the surrounding community and institutions. There are a multitude of thriving institutions that abut the campus but those connections are not yet leveraged to enhance each other. The Planners are equipped to think in broader terms to understand the long term and short-term impacts that the project can have on the site, the surrounding community and the region. The Real Estate Development students are considering the wide scale impact on the region but also more narrowly looking at the project itself and how it can be both financially feasible and have a positive impact on the community. The Development students utilize data from market studies to predict the best proposed use and if that use can be supported in the long term. They also use financial estimations and long -term projections to determine how a project can be financed and if it can maintain a positive cash flow once operational. The Historic Preservation students have the most defined focus of the disciplines as they are looking specifically at the physical structures and improvements to the site, considering how those structures came to be, and what can be done to maintain the history that brought them into existence and to their current state. Their work, while precise in the scope, still must consider the broader context of the site. It must take into account the history of a site and with the Richardson Olmsted Complex there is a deep, complex history and evolution that must be fully understood by the Historic Preservation students. That knowledge is leveraged to inform how the site can be revitalized and adapted for a modern purpose and they bring the tools to understand how to do that work within the stringent confines of the Secretary of the Interior Historic Preservation Standards. Those standards must be adhered to and navigated in order to obtain historic tax credits, which have a major impact on the financial viability of a project. The “Big Idea” of this studio is to tap into the deep knowledge of these three disciplines and magnify and leverage that knowledge to create something greater than what could be achieved by one discipline alone. The interaction with other disciplines has allowed the graduate students to

push further and explore topics and ideas that they may not have otherwise considered if not for that direct and repetitive interaction with students from other disciplines. Most importantly, this studio has closely simulated a real-world, large-scale project which would bring together the expertise of many fields and get them all collaborating and thinking communally about how to tackle a project. With a site like the Richardson Olmsted Campus, it is immensely helpful to have this diverse set of ideas and opinions because any work done on this site is inherently difficult and solutions are not straight forward. The historic reuse of these structures do not easily translate to modern uses and the construction costs are very high. That combination demands creative and innovative solutions that can only be garnered through the collaboration of a team such as this.