SUNY PURCHASE | PLAZAS + PATHWAYS

ABB’s design improves and reorganizes circulation into and from the central campus core to buildings and open spaces defining its outer edges. New materials and redefined entry and threshold spaces clarify access routes across campus. The project rehabilitates several outdoor corridors linking up with the main plaza as well as the circulation paths, entry areas, and plazas associated with these corridors and adjacent buildings. Tree and planting palettes are chosen to respond to different campus building functions and architectural language. The science building entry was reconfigured from a steep sloping area into stepped and accessible pathways and planting beds. 

The SUNY Purchase College campus master plan, originally designed in 1967, aimed to create a “city within the country” by developing 500 acres of open fields into a dense complex of buildings and plazas within the rural countryside of Purchase, NY. Nearly half a century later, SUNY undertook a multi-phased total reconstruction of the main plaza, which is the central core of the campus.