VINNY Cirasole does a brisk business from his cart in the Conant Hall Courtyard. Plunked in a small valley just down the slope from the library and hemmed in on two sides by Hewitt and Conant halls, Vinny's sits in the midst of one of the university's most heavily traveled intersections. His new cart has the look of a period trolley, and between classes people line up at the window for coffee and bagels, sandwiches and smoothies. But there's not a bench in sight that invites customers to stay and eat. Instead, there's an inhospitable mess of parking spaces, paved walkways and struggling trees. There's no definition to the space, no reason to stick around. "This," says Doug Bencks, with the sweep of an arm, "is not a place."

Just up the hill, in front of Murkland Hall, the neighborhood improves dramatically, and the director of UNH's campus planning surveys the scene with satisfaction. "This is a major campus crossroads," says Bencks, noting the students streaming in and out of Murkland, Dimond Library and Thompson Hall. "But it's also a place in its own right—people hang out here." Today, the benches in this outdoor room are full. Students talk in small groups or sit alone with a book. The space is alive. It is inhabited.

It wasn't always this way. Murkland Courtyard used to be just like its nondescript neighbor. Shortly after Bencks arrived at UNH about 15 years ago, he helped transform the site into a place that was, well, a place. "It's a good example," he says, "of something we're trying to do all over campus: creating spaces that bring people together, that build community."

When the University System of New Hampshire Board of Trustees recently approved the university's 2004 Master Plan, they were endorsing precisely this—a vision of the future rooted in a sense of place. "Our job," Bencks says of the three-person Office of Campus Planning, "is to serve as stewards, to make sure that future generations have something as wonderful as we have today." Master planning is an ongoing process, he notes, explaining that the 20-year plan is a tweaked version of the one that preceded it. And the vision it puts forth is a collective one. "People have good ideas," he says. "We try to take these ideas and see what makes sense for the future."

Bencks also likes to define what master planning is not. "It's not just about growth," he says, noting that the plan reflects a cap on enrollment at about 12,000 undergraduate and 2,500 graduate students (currently 10,850 and 2,150 respectively). Designed to support UNH's three-pronged mission of teaching, research and public service, the 2004 plan calls for strategic changes over a 20-year period: new and renovated academic buildings; more student housing; expanded transportation and parking options; and restoration of the natural environment.

Of course, there are challenges. "People are always concerned about their own corner of the world," says Bencks, "the view from their window, being able to park nearby, the inconvenience of moving." But change is required, he says, if UNH is to thrive in a way that respects the environment and improves the daily experience.

From the porch of Smith Hall, Bencks has a good view of the future—and it looks a lot like the past. There's the expanse of lawn, the graceful trees, the traditional brick architecture of Scott and Congreve. On the left is Thompson Hall with its clock tower, as well as the familiar roof lines of Murkland and Hamilton Smith. The center of Durham is just a short walk down Main Street.

The college, the village, the landscape—all of them quintessentially New England and all of them visible from here on the porch—are foundational elements of UNH's master plan. Together, they constitute the setting where living and learning take place. Destroy them, and the UNH experience would be forever changed.

Smith Hall, which was built in 1908, lost its porch when the building fell into disrepair. In 1992, using old photos as a guide, the porch was recreated. "This is a wonderful piece of campus character," says Bencks, admiring the proportioned columns as he rocks on the porch swing. The view, Bencks says, provides a clear sense of what he calls "a humane and ideally proportioned environment."

Students who sit on this porch, who look out on the view framed by these columns, will have a certain slant on their UNH experience. The curve of a path, a particular tree, the way the sunlight glances off a certain window, the creak of a porch swing—these details are like fragile threads, barely noticed, that become woven tightly into the fabric of experience.

Preserving the best of the past as we march into the future remains a guiding principle of the master plan. Perhaps nowhere is this commitment so visible as it is in the auditorium of the renovated Murkland Hall. The original ceiling's intricate plaster work, crumbling and covered for decades with a drop ceiling, was painstakingly restored. Elegant windows that had been hidden are back in all their glory.

Another bank of windows in another recently renovated building offers a dramatic reminder that the natural environment, too, is part of UNH's heritage.

In Dimond Library's Hubbard Reading Room, the windows soar two stories along the entire east wall, opening the view to the ravine that runs through the middle of campus. The master plan calls for improvements to this natural area, as well as ongoing tree replacement throughout campus. "Very few schools have the natural resources we do," says Bencks. "The native landscape is critical to the teaching and research that goes on here."

Inside the library's reading room, students bend over their books. Pages turn. Mostly there is silence. Outside, trees bend in the wind. The light shifts. The changing panorama keeps company with the students at work like an ever-present muse.

The conference room in recently renovated Pettee Hall provides Bencks with another of his favorite views. Rudman Hall rises to the east, paying homage to its New England heritage with materials of brick, granite and slate, reinterpreted in a modern look. The new Gregg Environmental Technology Building is visible on the still-distant west side of campus. The two buildings are separated by the famously awkward and uninviting service road that passes beneath the railroad track. Next year, the construction of a new underpass between Morse Hall and Gregg Hall, plus sidewalks, trees and lighting, will provide a welcoming link to replace the narrow tunnel.

The cluster of service buildings along College Road will be replaced by academic buildings that will complete "the science quadrangle." In keeping with the modest growth goals for student enrollment, new buildings will increase UNH's research capacity rather than its classroom space. Renovations of DeMerritt, James, Nesmith and Hamilton Smith, for example, will include small additions, not big expansions.

Paul Creative Arts Center will undergo an extensive redesign rather than being replaced by a new center as called for in the 1994 plan, and subsequently deemed too ambitious. The $50 million expansion and renovation of Kingsbury Hall is currently underway, funded with $44 million from the state, and is scheduled for completion in three years. Meanwhile, $100 million has been requested from the legislature for academic building renovations. Since many campus buildings date from the early 1900s, the number that need major renovations is growing, says Bencks.

One area where there is a pressing need for increased space is student housing. UNH will eventually house 60 to 70 percent of undergraduates on campus, up from 50 percent now. On-campus family housing for graduate students, visiting faculty and new faculty will increase from 150 to as many as 370 units. Slated to start this summer is the construction of new apartments for undergraduates at the Gables. Some of the families currently living in Forest Park will move to the Woodside apartments, and eventually about half of Forest Park will be demolished and replaced by undergraduate dorms.

Like the housing issue, most changes require a long view, and will be affected by available funding. Parking garages designated for Lots A and B, for example, are penciled in for the distant future since they will be expensive and state appropriations can be used only for academic facilities.

Transportation decisions are often driven by a single question: How far can you walk in 10 minutes? "This seems to be about the limit of what's comfortable for people," says Bencks. When they are eventually built, the garages will help to transform the core campus into a pedestrian-friendly place, eliminating small, ungainly parking lots. The net result will increase parking capacity only slightly, from 6,500 cars to 7,100. Reliable shuttle service remains key.

Another transportation goal, the reduction of traffic along Main Street, will be achieved by the addition of two roads originating at the western gateway, the approach to campus from Route 4. They will loop around the campus core, and will make getting to the other side of campus much more efficient.

Some traffic improvements will begin as soon as this year. The stretch of Main Street that runs through campus, for example, will get an overhaul in 2005-06, helping to reduce the great divide between the two sides of campus. The western gateway itself will get a fresh look, too: better signs, a new fence and a tree-lined walkway. Vinny's customers will be glad to know that Conant Courtyard is also scheduled for makeover this summer. And yes, there will be plenty of benches. It will finally become an inviting destination, a gathering spot, a place.