Setting up the next century

For decades, the southeast corner of Princeton University served as an ancillary support area: a surface parking lot with temporary structures, two athletics fields, and several acres of unoccupied space. As the institution envisioned its future, setting goals to create a dedicated place for athletics and to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2046, this land presented an opportunity. The question was one that faces many universities today—how can the institution grow while shifting its existing campus to renewable energy? 

SOM’s master plan, designed in collaboration with Field Operations, extends the campus with a soccer stadium, an associated practice field, new transit options, and cutting-edge geo-exchange infrastructure that dramatically reduces the university’s carbon footprint. Opened just five years after the master plan was completed, the project is a rarity in the world of campus planning; SOM spearheaded the development of the site, delivering utilities, roads, pathways, open spaces, and infrastructure while coordinating a holistic vision with the architects of the individual buildings.

Transforming the university’s energy infrastructure

On its surface, the Stadium Neighborhood serves the direct needs of students and staff with the new stadium, practice field, a 1,600-car parking garage, and an open space and tailgating area. With limited space for renewable energy infrastructure, SOM approached the design from a three-dimensional perspective, considering not only the space above ground, but far below it as well.

Spread throughout the Stadium Neighborhood, a new geo-exchange system replaces the carbon-intensive steam heating that had served the entire campus. Heat pumps are housed alongside chillers and thermal energy storage in a new building, called the Thermally Integrated Geo-Exchange Resource (T.I.G.E.R.) facility, which leverages hundreds of bores extending 800 feet underground. These bores capture and transfer heat from the earth to TIGER to regulate temperatures in nearly 200 buildings, and cut the university’s carbon emissions by 40 percent.

Creating a permeable campus

The Stadium Neighborhood is designed with the resiliency to withstand extreme storm events. Bioswales and other green infrastructure absorb stormwater, and the master plan retains a bioretention basin outside T.I.G.E.R. that removes pollutants frequently found in runoff. Beneath the soccer stadium, a 600,000-gallon storage tank supplements this bioretention area, providing the precinct with the capacity to collect a massive amount of stormwater. That capacity, situated at a downhill site, enables the university to develop other areas near Lake Carnegie without the need for additional stormwater management.

Preserving the landscape

The landscape is designed as an extension of the woodlands that line its southern border. More than 400 new native trees, as well as shrubs and meadow grasses, improve biodiversity and shade the pedestrian and bike paths. Near the parking garage, a grove of 19th-century sweetgum trees was carefully preserved. Beside the soccer stadium, and just steps away from the existing football stadium, the open meadow and tailgating area provides a gathering space inspired by the lawns that define the historic campus.

Bringing transit to the stadiums

The Stadium Neighborhood is a nexus of transportation, connecting to the entire university and surrounding town. Replacing a large surface parking lot, the new garage reduces the neighborhood’s vehicular footprint, and a bike and bus station at its base encourages sustainable transit. All vehicles share the same roads to leave space for pedestrian movement, and the master plan leaves space for a future pedestrian bridge to bring students across Lake Carnegie to the Meadows Neighborhood—an entirely new extension of the campus, also designed and planned by SOM and Field Operations.