BDP has unveiled its creative master plan for McMaster University’s campus redesign over the next decade.

The updated Hamilton-based university’s plan aims to make the campus more pedestrian-friendly and envisions providing a wide range of housing options that meet demand and create vibrant, mixed-used, inclusive living communities for students, faculty and staff, said BDP in a news release. A new light-rapid-transit station is also slated to figure prominently in the redesign.

BDP is a U.K.-based multidisciplinary architecture and design firm. The venture is BDP’s first education project in North America.

“This is a design rooted in sustainable connectivity that will provide a physical transformation across the campus,” said Sue Emms, BDP’s head of education. “It is also an expression of a clear vision to create more civic space and build an effective eco-system that is engaged with Indigenous, local, national and global communities. It is a new civic face for the institution.”

The designs leverage expertise from BDP’s global network of studios, including education architects from Toronto-based BDP Quadrangle, BDP’s education architecture team in the U.K. and designers from the organization’s in-house inclusive design practice, Human Space.

Plans include a long-term vision that supports innovation, well-being, inclusion and a sense of community for more than 47,000 McMaster students, faculty and staff.

“Our new campus plan provides a pathway to create a living laboratory for our bold aspirations while keeping sustainability, accessibility, equity and inclusion at the forefront of how we grow,” said David Farrar, president of McMaster. “This plan imagines places and spaces that can create impact, foster ambition and inspire transformation. We must develop in a way that reflects and supports the quality of the education and research taking place here.”

Part of the plan’s vision includes revising entrances so that they are more welcoming, green and outward-facing.

BDP’s design aligns with McMaster’s net-zero carbon roadmap and supports the university’s response to the climate and biodiversity emergency by prioritizing pedestrian-friendly spaces and climate-resilient buildings, rewilding parts of the campus and integrating blue-green infrastructure, said Heather Rolleston, principal of BDP Quadrangle.

“Collaborating across studios gave us the opportunity to call on the experience of our education and campus design work in the UK and apply it in Canada, adapting to local context and supporting McMaster’s vision for a greener and inclusive campus that is more connected and accessible,” she said.

Rendering: Courtesy of BDP Quadrangle