AN EVALUATION OF THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL LAYOUT IN CAMPUS MASTERPLAN DESIGN TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABILITY

Many of the current campus design development tends to be more ad-hoc and focus more on free-standing buildings in the landscape settings that do not respond to the environment of the local contexts. Those designs have been criticized for creating a high dependency on automobiles, sprawling and segregating campus outdoor spaces with roads and large parking lots that pose challenges to meet sustainability goals. This paper aims to evaluate the role of physical layout in the design of campus masterplan at Malaysian Public Universities (MPUs) to promote sustainability. Using a qualitative method of a multiple case study, a connection between physical layout and sustainability was evaluated based on document reviews, morphological studies, visual surveys, and semi-structured interview techniques. The finding reveals that the physical layout plays an important role in promoting a sustainable campus environment. It is recommended to emphasize the design of physical layout in the MPUs’ campus masterplan to ensure compactness and structured configurations, which enhance design sustainability. These are important attributes in the design approaches that should be taken by MPUs for it to be agents of sustainability.