University of New Mexico Valencia Campus

Studies have shown that aesthetically pleasing campuses with functional and attractive outdoor spaces are more appealing to potential students and effectively serve as a marketing tool. Through this project, UNM sought to modernize its Valencia Campus, improving its outdoor spaces to provide a more appealing and engaging learning environment. Sites collaborated with Vigil & Associates under an on-call contract to design a series of improvements to both indoor and outdoor spaces. Our primary focus was on enhancing the common areas between buildings and connecting the pedestrian-friendly campus core to a new high-use parking area at the campus's southwest corner serving the Health Sciences and Adult Education buildings, along with the creation of a shaded, multi-level study plaza and new access point on the west side of the Student Center/Student Union Building. The project also involved a landscape renovation of the main parking lot to provide a more visually appealing entrance to the campus. In order to protect the existing mature trees that provide shade for the parking lot, UNM agreed to the elimination of some parking spaces so that we could provide expanded planting beds to protect root zones of those trees and minimize future damage to adjacent curbs and asphalt paving.