Campus for Gown and Town
The Masterplan was commissioned by NUI Maynooth to provide the university with a clear and adaptable vision for development of the campus over the next 10 years and beyond. The university grounds straddle the main road into the town of Maynooth with the post 70’s campus on 50 hectares of fields to the North of the historic St Patrick’s College. The building programme is for 20,000 msq of accommodation as well as improvements to the public realm and the whole campus environment.
The plans try to express the values and ethos of NUI Maynooth just as Pugin reflected the values of religious education at St Patrick’s College, the founding institution, over 220 years ago. Today’s values are about widening access, learning across and within disciplines, cultivating creativity and innovation, and using the campus to exemplify best practice in sustainable development.
The vision put forward in the Masterplan is for a more compact campus, with major assets such as the theatre and library prominently positioned on the town approach road, re-named University Avenue, so as to promote ‘town’ use of ‘gown’ facilities. The north campus has potential to match the magnificent landscape setting of the old College providing shelter belts which make attractive settings for academic, leisure, recreation, and student residences clustered around squares and cloistered walkways. |
