Alpine Village (UCCS)
University of Colorado - Colorado Springs, CO
New student village creates outdoor spaces that celebrate the unique campus landscape.
The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) expanded resident housing, academic classrooms, and dining facilities north of the main college by creating a series of linked neighborhoods, including the Alpine Village. Wenk Associates developed site and landscape plans for the new First Year Experience Housing at Alpine Village that included a new dining facility and added nearly 600 new beds to the existing housing village.
Situated on a steep hillside, the plan creates outdoor spaces that celebrate the unique campus landscape features of bluffs, prairies, and arroyos. A road was removed to help unify the village and create a pedestrian spine, plazas, and green spaces that knit the new development to the existing village. A new gateway plaza and dining terrace feature expansive views to Pikes Peak and Pulpit Rock. The plan includes a dynamic and visible learning landscape created by daylighting an existing drainage and routing it through a student courtyard where stormwater runoff is infiltrated.