VMDO Architects

Having previously collaborated on several projects at Roanoke College, VMDO is humbled by the request to develop a master plan for this beautiful campus in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Our past design efforts of Roanoke’s Cregger Center and our planning work with their athletics and recreation teams placed VMDO in an ideal position to extend our conversations about dramatically improving the student experience on campus to include all facets of life at Roanoke.

We welcomed the opportunity to exchange insights about the future of the college built around our many years of experience on campus, but also informed by exciting new trends we began to discover through our intensive, in-person workshops, interviews, and walking tours.

Working closely with Roanoke College Leadership, and in conjunction with student-led workshops, the master plan team developed a framework of design principles that would help shape the direction of the design exercise. The themes - Integration, Flexible/Agile, Experimental, Trans-disciplinary, Asset-Light, Residential, Climate-Friendly, Historic yet Progressive – informed the guiding Goals embedded at the core of the master plan and served as the touchstones that helped shape our phased master plan implementation proposal.

While strategic planning work was being discussed with key stakeholder groups, VMDO was simultaneously engaged in a rigorous study of the physical conditions of the campus and its many buildings, play fields, academic spaces and gardens. Our assessment confirmed that the historic campus is built upon timeless planning principles that have served generations of Maroons well, but also highlighted several areas that could benefit from strategic investment and modest improvements to aging infrastructure.

To further elevate the beauty and welcoming character of Roanoke’s distinctive campus, it was first determined that prioritizing accessibility across the naturally rolling collegiate landscape was a top goal.

To continue to cultivate academic innovation, and to provide transformative learning experiences to new, more diverse cohorts of students, the master plan deployed a playbook of spatial and technological updates to existing classrooms and labs, Additionally, it proposed optimizing departmental space and location through “defragmentation” – a process of consolidating faculty and the College’s “Centers of Excellence” into identifiable nodes located around new, flexible common spaces.

Finally, to foster improvements in connection, student engagement, and school pride, the master plan suggests consolidating student services and academic success programming into two hubs of activity at the center of campus.