The Connection of Mental Mapping Strategies to Student-First Campus Planning with Senior Students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

Presenter: Gavin Defina

Faculty Sponsor: Piper Gaubatz

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Architecture and Urban Planning

Session: Poster Session 4, 2:15 PM - 3:00 PM, Auditorium, A62

ABSTRACT

Campus planning is an essential component of improving university life and impacts several groups that populate college environments. Students, the main stakeholders of universities, can help adapt and improve design measures when new campus planning initiatives are implemented. To explore their potential role in campus planning, this study used mental mapping strategies to show how a unique cohort of senior students understand the campus layout and physical design of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Mental mapping has long been used in the community development and planning sphere to learn how people utilize their places of habitation. Yet, limited research has been conducted on a specific class-based student group on a large public campus. Senior students participated in semi-structured interviews creating hand-drawn maps of the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus from memory and four years of lived experience. Additionally, they answered identification questions on places they deem visually appealing and discussed their opinion on potential future campus improvements and changes. Lastly, to bridge the gap between hand-drawn and technological map-making, geographic information science platforms were used to develop analysis maps to present the overarching results of the study. This research portfolio will elucidate the need for increased student-first planning opportunities and deliver a thorough exploration of the connection between analyzed mental mapping results to current campus planning actions at the university scale.

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