4a. Site Plan - Main Campus Cluster

The organizing feature of this cluster is its pedestrian spine, the main elements of which are:

• The main mosque
• Library
• Covered pedestrian plaza
• Shopping center (with 'festival halls' located to the rear of the shopping center)

The main campus cluster also includes:

• Academic buildings and deanships for all of the nonmedical departments (both male and female)
• Student centers for both male and female students
• Dormitory housing for both genders
• A family housing development for married faculty, staff, and students (including community centers for this development)
• Luxury villas for university administrators and high-ranking professors

Pedestrian Spine

The spine, a covered, landscaped pedestrian boulevard, bisects the main campus cluster, dividing it into male and female portions. Schools and colleges are grouped by disciplines: Sharia'ah Law is located close to the main mosque, with art disciplines to the south and scientific disciplines in the southernmost portion. Female academic buildings are located directly across the spine from their male counterparts, allowing for more direct and physical futures connections between the male and female schools should social norms change in the coming decades.

Deanships and research centers are located throughout the cluster as part of each department's academic buildings. The main library is centrally located along the spine, and can be accessed from either side by both male and female students. The pedestrian spine passes over top of the campus' primary road so that students and other members of the University community can walk from one end of the spine to the other without being impeded by traffic.

Visitor parking for the main campus cluster is located on the southern edge of the cluster, just off the primary road and close to the shopping area. This parking is covered with a roof of photovoltaic solar cells that both provide shade and enhance energy efficiency.

Student Housing

Student centers are located to the east and west of the library, and are associated with the student housing - there is one student center for male students and another for female students. Housing for males and females is located on both sides of the pedestrian spine, behind their respective academic schools. This is intended to allow easy access to the schools and other facilities while also protecting gender separation.

The dorms are designed to generally be consistent with regional vernacular, featuring inclined walls and interior courtyards. Parking is located below the housing (either on the ground floor with rear driveway access or in a partially or completely excavated basement level, as topography requires for a given building). This allows for the preservation of surface space for future school expansion and also provides shade for vehicles while they are in storage.

Family and Administration Housing

Family housing (for married faculty and students) is located around a hill on the northwestern portion of the cluster and is in the style of attached townhomes. These townhomes are terraced with the topography both to provide better views for residents and to allow for hidden parking areas behind the first level of homes, below the access road and the second level of homes. Walking paths ring the hill, leading to a viewing platform at its summit. Two community centers containing small schools and various other community functions are placed within the family housing ring.

To the north of the family housing are villas for high-ranking University officials.