Built to Last

A notable aspect of the Monroe Campus is the thinking behind its architectural guidelines. The buildings will be built for the ages and the streetscapes designed for people, not automobiles.

Walk down West Franklin Street in the vicinity of the Commonwealth Club, says architect Eddie Smith, and you'll see a slice of downtown Richmond with a distinctive, and delightful, architectural tradition.

Many structures are built right up to the sidewalk; others are separated by only modest front yards. Building facades are ornamented with visually interesting detail like archways, elaborate brickwork and promi-

nent entrances. Property lines are set off by granite slabs, some of them inset with wrought-iron rails. Handsome trees line the curb, creating a buffer between the sidewalk and the busy thoroughfare. The setting, Smith observes, provides "a sense of comfort and human scale."

Contrast the strong sense of place on West Franklin with the view that presents itself when you walk down the hill to Main Street. Gazing toward the freeway, you see parking lots, dilapidated buildings and empty acreage stubbled with grass. Automobiles rush down Main Street. You rarely see anyone using the sidewalks.

While much of Richmond's central business district has blossomed over the past decade, the 10.8 acres on downtown's western edge has steadfastly resisted improvement. But that will change when Virginia Commonwealth University builds the $196 million Monroe Campus to house the School of Engineering and the School of Business programs.

The Monroe Campus complex of three- and four-story buildings will dominate downtown Richmond's western marches and set the tone for the stores, offices and townhouses that university officials expect to sprout all around. Opportunities to make an impact on such a large chunk of the city may come along once a generation. Fully aware of the stakes involved, the university engaged Smith -- a big-picture architect whose projects include many college and university projects -- to draw up architectural guidelines for the dozen or more academic buildings, dormitories and other structures planned for the project over the next dozen years.

In developing the guidelines, which will set parameters for the design of individual buildings, Smith had to juggle a number of considerations. First, the Monroe Campus must create high-visibility landmarks while fitting comfortably into the existing urban fabric. Second, the campus must create a smooth transition between downtown office buildings and VCU's urban campus on the far side of Belvidere. Third, the layout must support cohesive academic communities without walling off the campus from the rest of the city.

For Smith, the solution lay close at hand. He turned to West Franklin Street for inspiration, carrying over architectural themes from landmarks like the Commonwealth Club and the Jefferson Hotel, and emulating the pedestrian-friendly ambience of the historical corridor.

Smith knows the area intimately: His firm, Smith + McClane Architects, is located on the ground floor of Linden Tower, a rehabbed office at Second and Franklin Streets. "What we want to do with [Monroe Campus]," he summarizes, "is make the scale and the character as pleasant as the scale and character of Franklin Street."

"We're aiming for a distinctive look," affirms VCU President Eugene Trani, whose vision for the Broad Street Corridor and the Virginia Biotechnology Park already has transformed large swathes of Richmond real estate. "With the Monroe Campus, it's important that we utilize the surroundings - the Jefferson, the Commonwealth Club, Franklin Street - to set a tone for what the Monroe Campus will look like."

Consider what $200 million in public and private investment has done for Broad Street along the northern edge of the VCU campus, and what $150 million has done in the Virginia Biotechnology Park, Trani says. The Monroe Campus is even bigger. "This will be more than $200 million. This is big. You want to make sure it's in sync with the community."

The life-span of college architecture is far longer than that of most commercial construction. The Monroe Campus will be built to last, Smith says. "The buildings we're talking about [on the Monroe Campus] should still be here in 100 to 150 years." The engineering and business schools, like the houses along West Franklin, will be built of brick and stone masonry. They will present formidable facades, designed to convey strength and permanence.

Unlike most contemporary office complexes, the campus will be designed with an eye toward creating memorable views. One icon, visible from downtown, will be a tower festooned with arches, ornamentation and a cupola. Another focal point, the corner of Belvidere and Cary Streets, will receive special treatment. "Envision yourself living in the West End and working downtown," says Smith. "In the morning, you come down Cary Street instead of [Interstate] 64. When you come through VCU, you see the corner of Cary and Belvidere for blocks before you get there. That's a focal point. That needs to be a symbolic vista."

The college buildings will bear little resemblance to the glass-and-steel boxes, surrounded by parking lots and spindly trees, found in the typical suburban, corporate office complex. The VCU campus will be inset with a crescent courtyard, an amphitheater and interior courtyards. Someone strolling through the campus will find a new view at every step: vistas set off by arches, colonnades or trees. "It will be a series of surprises," says Smith. "There will be different ways in and out of the complex. It's not a solid wall of buildings -- it's very porous. You can cut through. It will be fun."

While Smith wants the buildings to bespeak an enduring academic institution, he doesn't want them to stand apart from the city. "We wanted to create a sense of neighborhood and connection between our structures, and at the same time, connect the structures and the people using them to the city itself."

For most of its history, VCU was a "commuter" college in which students lived elsewhere and drove in to take their classes. The university has evolved into more of a traditional residential college that houses students in dormitories. Unlike other parts of VCU, the Monroe Campus will be designed as an integrated residential-academic environment from its inception. Smith envisions an intimate community in which students live, study and shop in the immediate area.

Courtyards will create havens were students can relax outdoors. His guidelines will encourage street-level retail establishments - book stores, coffee shops, whatever - to locate in the complex so students don't have to hop in a car for every simple trip.

Smith places great emphasis on the streetscape with the goal of creating an environment conducive to pedestrians. "In a city environment, time and distance are more compact [than in the suburbs]," Smith says. "You just don't use an automobile the way you do in the suburbs. This needs a much more intimate walking scale." Judicious use of paving materials, building setbacks, courtyards, trees and traffic buffers will make the campus a place where people enjoy walking.

At the same time, VCU planners want Monroe Campus faculty and students to interact with the community. Smith has sketched into the plans a small amphitheater where students can sit outdoors and watch movies projected against the wall of the old Central Belting Company building. Planners also are toying with the idea of locating an art gallery in the complex, with the hope of luring the public to university functions.

Perhaps Smith's most important statement is mandating a return to traditional architectural forms. Although building interiors will be equipped with thoroughly modern infrastructure, their exteriors will hew to classic patterns. Some of the guidelines:

Buildings should be no less than three stories and no more than five stories in height. The scale will match that of the School of Engineering building on the west side of Belvidere.

Buildings should have a clearly recognizable base, middle and top - a principle typically neglected in modern buildings. The bases are particularly important, for they reinforce the pedestrian scale of the buildings.
Building entrances should be architecturally "legible" - that is, they should stand out.
Buildings should frame vistas with imaginative use of archways, colonnades and other elements.

It's an exciting plan. Indeed, the Monroe Campus arguably represents the most ambitious architectural vision for a part of Richmond since the 1890 unveiling of the Lee Monument and Monument Avenue.

A modest man, Smith waves off such hyperbole. He describes his principles matter-of-factly, as if they're no more than common sense. But Eddie Smith's bold vision could well be remembered in another 100 years as one of Richmond's more enduring architectural accomplishments.

-- March 2004