Designs Mute San Marcos Campus : University: Master plan is a winner, but individual buildings lack flair, warmth.

The new California State University campus in San Marcos stands a good chance of succeeding where other San Diego County college campuses have failed dismally.

Scheduled to open in the fall of 1992 with 2,700 students in five new buildings, the campus is developing according to a thoughtful master plan that makes San Diego State University and UC San Diego look chaotic by comparison.

But the proof of any master plan is in its execution. Based on the first buildings commissioned by the school, administrators haven’t pushed hard enough for exquisite architecture worthy of the county’s newest university. The initial building designs lack a richness and imagination that could give the campus long-lasting character.

Prepared by CRSS Architecture of Irvine, the master plan depicts a campus of three- and four-story buildings arrayed in a belt across the middle of the 304-acre hillside site on Twin Oaks Valley Road just south of Delaware 78.

A handful of “jewel” buildings, including a library, are intended to have enough identity--without being too progressive--to stand out from several conservative, flat-roofed “background” buildings.

Of five buildings scheduled for completion by 1992, four are “background” buildings, one as a “jewel.”

In the case of “background” laboratory, lecture, physical plant and commons buildings, the bland design approach being taken is justified by the need to knit a new campus together as a harmonious whole.

However, the first of the “jewel” buildings, the $14.3-million William A. Craven Hall designed by CRSS, looks more like a speculative office project than the inviting anchor of a new university campus. It lacks warmth, flair, sparks.

Named after the state senator who was instrumental in developing the new university, the 148,000-square-foot building has to accommodate diverse uses.

Until the next phase of construction adds separate buildings to house various functions, William A. Craven Hall will be Campus Central rolled into one, including a small library, administrative and faculty offices, student health services and a computer center.

“We wanted to avoid slick, modern architecture,” said Al Amado, the university’s assistant vice president for physical planning and campus construction. “We did not want flash-cube glass boxes. I sought to go back to the Old World charm that’s created with natural materials like stone.”

Architects from CRSS site their building’s planned marble base as a sign of richness. They said they intentionally chose simple forms that will work with a variety of future buildings nearby. But they failed to achieve the richness, meticulous detailing and artfulness one might expect of a new university’s most important edifice.

An open rotunda at a back corner where the building joins the campus pedestrian walk will be its best design feature, a composition of strong, simple forms that invite pedestrians into the building.

Facing the main campus road, though, Craven Hall will be all business, its cool, flat surfaces and methodically placed window and door openings offering little in the way of surprises, warmth or color.

Essentially a design out of the modern school, CRSS’s building won’t have the power such modern buildings as the Salk Institute in La Jolla achieve through inventive but simple forms and detailing, nor will it have the “Old World charm” Amado described. A respected local architect familiar with the new campus dubbed William A. Craven Hall “an educational Nieman Marcus.”

Other buildings in the first wave--three designed by Mosher Drew Watson & Ferguson of San Diego, and one by James Alcorn and Associates of Alcorn--don’t look much more promising.

The two-story Student Services building by Mosher Drew, for example, is well proportioned, with a second-floor rotunda rising from a first floor punctuated by arched openings. But, if finished, as planned, with plain stucco and without fine exterior accent materials such as ceramic tile, it too will lack richness and warmth.

While the first buildings look disappointing, the master plan will probably win some awards.

Because of the way the campus will settle into the terrain, and because of the importance of the narrow pedestrian streets between buildings, planners have compared the campus to an Italian hill town, although the architecture is not intended to revive the Italian Renaissance.

The most impressive aspect of the plan is that it gives the highest priority to pedestrians, playing up the importance of spaces between buildings while leaving a fair degree of latitude for a variety of architecture.

Landscaped courtyards, plazas and paths will tie the campus together. An amphitheater terraced into the hillside at the center of campus and several broad sets of stairs will take advantage of the sloping site to add visual drama.

In the future, the university will be a centerpiece of downtown San Marcos. The city’s “Heart of the City” plan, a guide for the development of nearly 1,700 acres centered on the intersection of Highway 78 and Twin Oaks Valley Road, details how it will fit in.

Along Barham Road and Twin Oaks Valley Road at the edges of the campus, retail and office uses will complement the university. Parking along these streets will be hidden behind buildings, giving pedestrians full reign of wide sidewalks and easy access to businesses, expected to include sidewalk cafes.

In laying out the campus, planners faced perplexing choices. For one thing, they had to decide whether to push buildings to the edges of the site, where they would relate intimately to the new town center, or to set them back to achieve a more secluded, pastoral academic environment.

Seclusion and privacy won out.

By grouping buildings in a dense belt midway up the hill, planners will not only achieve the desired privacy, but will make the buildings visible from the freeway and from several points in the community. Given this degree of prominence, the buildings will serve as valuable symbols, sources of identity in a community that doesn’t have much of one now.

With the buildings set back from the edges of the site, planners are counting on three key circulation routes to make strong connections to the community.

From the corner of Twin Oaks and Barham, a wide, tree-lined pedestrian walk flanked by grass athletic fields will lead up the gentle slope into the campus. The path will be aligned with the peak of the hill behind the campus and oriented in the direction of a 90-foot campanile anchoring a grand piazza at the campus’ center.

Though the campus will eventually include housing for 6,000 students, most of the 25,000 students expected by 2010 will commute. Two six-lane roads will carry motorists onto the campus from entries along Barham and Twin Oaks. Meticulous, large-scale landscaping along these roads will give them a sort of grand boulevard identity.

It is hoped that the next “jewel” building will have more warmth, personality and character than the first. A more open process for selecting architects and the creation of a design review board including top architects and planners might help promote better designs.

The state university system has a disappointingly closed selection process for architects. Names of experienced firms are culled from a computer database compiled by the system over several years, then a few finalists are selected and interviewed. The best young, innovative firms don’t stand much of a chance--most would not be considered because they lack experience doing university buildings.

As grading and construction progressed on campus last week, there was a threat of major delays because of the state water crisis. Water is essential to construction projects for soil compaction. If rationing measures become more stringent, water may be cut off and construction may be halted. University officials are negotiating with water authorities in an attempt to ensure their construction water supply.

DESIGN NOTES: Hope Architects and Engineers is watching the Persian Gulf War with heightened interest. The company designed school buildings in 17 Saudi Arabian cities, and several buildings at Diego Garcia military installation in the Maldive Islands, south of India, where some B-52 bombers left on missions earlier in the war. . . .

Richard Leighton has left Pacific Associates Planners and Architects to go on his own, which leaves Randy Dalrymple as the only remaining original partner. Dalrymple has been expanding overseas business, while Leighton plans a more local approach.