Master Plan

Our master plan for the College of Notre Dame of Maryland reflects in physical form the goals and aspirations of this oldest North American, Catholic, Women's college as it enters its second century. Encompassing both short and long range planning goals, the master plan proposes changes that will allow the College to meet pressing, current needs and to incrementally realize a strategy which will unify and clarify the entire campus while directing future growth according to patterns which are consistent with the best of its history.

The master plan proposes new facilities including:

1) A 70,000 GSF College Center including a central campus dining facility and College lounge, recreational and meeting rooms, a blackbox theatre, a six lane swimming pool with direct connection to an existing gymnasium, a student store and a variety of facilities dedicated to students' services and the College's clubs and student government.

2) A new 60,000 GSF science center connected to the existing but renovated Knott Science Building and housing laboratories, classrooms and faculty offices associated with the increasingly inter related fields of biology and chemistry. The new building also houses a 100 seat, high technology classroom and related computer based learning facilities.

3) A 65,000 GSF residence hall containing 265 beds configured in a combination of student apartments and suites.

4) A 40,000 to 50,000 GSF academic building programmed to provide the College with much needed seminar sized and computer enabled classrooms and with other academic spaces intended to meet future enrollment growth needs and allow existing instructional spaces on campus to be incrementally vacated and renovated.

The master plan also reorganizes and clarifies the pattern of campus roadways and pedestrian paths, creates a system of traditional, academic quadrangles defined by new and existing buildings, proposes clear and affordable strategies for the resolution of the College's parking and servicing problems and reorganizes and expands both indoor and outdoor athletic facilities.

The first phase of construction, consisting of reorganized parking lots, roadways, new athletic fields, and a campus wide stormwater management system, was completed in 1998. The second phase, consisting of an addition to and renovation of the Knott Science Center, and the renovation of the 1911 Mary Meletia Residence Hall, was completed in 1999. Renovations of three further buildings is now under way as is planning for a new, $20 million campus center.

RAMSA Partners Robert A.M. Stern, Graham S. Wyatt, and Augusta Barone led the design.