Landscape Architect's Role: Project Director, Planner & Landscape Architect

Recognizing that an institution as significant and prestigious as the Universidad de Monterrey should have a campus and landscape aesthetic that truly reflects the institution's culture, curricula and environment, the university selected the Texas ­based landscape studio to capture the institution's vision for the future. Responding to the challenge, the landscape architects created a bold and pioneering campus plan that today has become a catalyst for development and a benchmark for institutional planning in Mexico.

In addition to campus facility plans, the landscape architects created environmental management and ecological stewardship concepts as part of the campus master plan's implementation. The and and fragile site was analyzed as to its suitability as welt as to its capacity for development. Site environmental mitigation concepts included the creation of "no-build" zones, site detention and run-off scenarios, waste water management plans, energy management criteria, dark sky design criteria, plant palette control, fenestration control, set back & construction material control. The landscape architects worked closely with local architects, planners, engineers and developers to ensure that a successful follow-through and coordination could fast­ track the plan's implementation. Working with the municipalities of San Pedro, Santa Catarina and Monterrey, the landscape architects were able to significantly impact proposed regional infrastructure and transportation projects that had a direct influence on campus growth and mobility. A major thoroughfare was realigned to by­pass the campus, a floodway was planned as the university's recreational fields, a regional drainage way and arroya were designed as a wildlife preserve and a linear park and an environmental preserve replaced a utility corridor.

The landscape architects bilingual documentation of the campus master plan is today the major fund raising toot of the university development and rector's office.

The landscape architects continue to support the Universidad de Monterrey both as consultants and as visiting faculty. The campus plan has been the subject of several international campus planning symposia, most recently at the Society of University and Colleges Planners (SCUP) International Conference in Mexico.

Landscape architects - and indeed the entire practice - are an emerging profession in Mexico. As a direct result of the success of the Universidad de Monterrey's campus master plan that was created by the landscape architects, today the Universidad de Monterrey has begun the process of developing the landscape architectural curricula within the university.