Architects and engineers, landscapers and interior designers alike create visual images that are pleasing to the eye.
The reason being, no one wants to be surrounded by or looking at something hideous, bland or ugly.
It’s important for the design team to please those that walk amid the setting daily, while still maintaining an inviting environment for visitors.
In recent months our Loyola campus has been bombarded by construction and demolition, as well as minor landscaping changes.
Personally I am upset by the ugly chaos taking place all around me. The construction work has been going on for the entire semester, and although I have read the reasons for such work I still feel it to be unnecessary and poorly planned.
A large portion of the peace quad has transformed into a sea of fences, machinery and makeshift walkway bridges. Not only is this an eyesore right in the heart of campus but it’s been there for a while. I think I have forgotten what the Peace Quad even looks like anymore.
Touring prospective students cannot be attracted to the monstrosity placed so largely in the middle of campus.
Our residential quad is also fading in beauty. It’s a great place to hang out or relax, the front yard of all students living on campus, but it seems forgotten by those who maintain our gorgeous campus. The short grass is dying off, leaving but a mud pit in the center.
The horseshoe remains beautiful year-round. I assume this is due to the large number of visitors and tourists that judge their first impression of Loyola on that first image. But just because the residential quad is buried further back on campus, does not mean it should be unkempt.
I would love to wake up each morning to a bright green lawn, much like the one found in the front of campus. Instead, I peer out my window at a growing mud pit and am greeted in the Peace Quad by a desert of dirt and construction equipment.
Most disheartening of all is the lost aura of my favorite sidewalk on campus. The walkway on the west side of the Danna Center that connects the Residential Quad to the Peace Quad has been altered to my severe disliking.
The old walkway was embellished with tropical green plants and flourishing ivy. To walk down this path was to escape the hectic hustle and bustle of campus life, even if it was just for a few quick seconds.
Now I’m greeted by a plain cement sidewalk that is just the same as most other sidewalks on campus. No longer a place of refuge because the removal of every single plant on one side. It has completely lost its zen vibe.
However small this issue may seem, it’s important to note the power of one’s environment. Just as studying or working is only productive in an environment that permits it, so is a university campus important to its current and future students.
I hope that Loyola’s campus will undergo a makeover during the holidays and have a new face for the new year.
Janece Bell can be reached at
[email protected]
