For the first time in more than a decade, The University of Texas at Austin is launching a new campus master planning initiative designed to guide its growth and enhance the campus experience. The Campus Master Plan will provide a framework for land use and development and be a tool to inform continuous investment in UT Austin’s infrastructure, including recommendations for renovations and the reuse of existing buildings to serve its mission.
Previous master planning efforts have allowed UT to grow thoughtfully from a small college on a hill to the state’s flagship university and one of the world’s top research institutions. This next planning effort will encompass building cohesive connections between the Forty Acres and other University properties, including the newly announced location for the UT Medical Center in north Austin west of the J.J. Pickle Research Campus. It will help the University make informed decisions that support students, faculty, staff and the community today and into the future.
“The physical campus is something we may not think about consciously, but it is always shaping the campus experience,” said Brent Stringfellow, University architect and associate vice president for campus operations and planning. “With the pace of physical growth that we’re experiencing right now, this is an exciting moment to consider how our spaces can best support discovery, connection, and long-term impact.”
Core aspects of the Campus Master Plan will include the following.
Defined Areas of Academic and Innovation Excellence
The plan will evaluate how the University will use existing and future buildings to better organize campus in support of its research and teaching missions. This will allow related programs and disciplines to strengthen collaboration and support UT’s continued advancement in academic medicine, innovation, and the frontiers of science.
Make It Easy To Move Across Campuses in an Urban Environment
The plan will engage the UT community and regional partners to develop a mobility framework that allows UT to make the best decisions to support how its community moves across the main campus and UT’s extended campuses across all modes of travel. A key part of this effort will also include how to improve accessibility to buildings, outdoor spaces, and pathways across campus, in coordination with ongoing efforts.
Advancing the Student Campus Experience
The plan will help create a campus experience that supports every dimension of student life — guiding the University to make informed decisions about where future Longhorns live, study, work, gather and celebrate. Grounded in principles that strengthen community and innovative learning, the plan will identify how physical spaces can be enhanced to help students lead, contribute and thrive.
Shaping Future Landmarks and a Unified Campus Character
The Campus Master Plan will help shape the next generation of notable landmarks, buildings and spaces on UT’s campus, adding to existing notable spaces such as the six red-roofed academic buildings known as the “six pack” that flank the South Mall. Through studying how the UT community arrives, gathers and moves through campus, the plan will set the stage for future landmarks to emerge from a strong sense of place and UT’s mission.
The plan will also articulate clear design standards and material guidelines, ensuring that new development and renovations share a cohesive and consistent look. These standards will encourage creativity while providing principles that guide resilient building design, historical preservation, landscape and grounds, and signage. Together, these guidelines will merge the past, present and future to shape a distinct UT experience for everyone who steps onto campus.
“A campus master plan is fundamentally an academic strategy expressed in space, influencing how scholars collaborate, how students encounter ideas across disciplines, and how effectively the University supports research and teaching excellence over the long term,” said David Vanden Bout, dean of the College of Natural Sciences and chair of the Master Planning Steering Committee. “In the coming months, as people from across campus weigh in with their own hopes for our campus spaces, they’re also helping to develop a vision for what our University accomplishes together for years to come.”
UT has selected Sasaki Associates, an internationally recognized planning and design firm, to support the development and implementation of the plan. The process will begin with a robust discovery phase during which the University will gather input from faculty, staff, students and community partners through surveys, focus groups and other engagement opportunities.
Updates and announcements about how to get involved will be communicated at UT’s Campus Master Plan website at https://campusmasterplan.utexas.edu/
