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Planning the Future of UH Mānoa

The Planning Office provides leadership, guidance, and information in the areas of planning, design, sustainability, and space management. Operating under the Vice Chancellor for Administration, Finance, and Operations, the Office focuses on best practices in building and campus design, environmental stewardship, energy and resource efficiency, landscape and transportation planning, and space management. The Office further supports UH Mānoa’s academic mission in providing a campus that attracts, retains, teaches, and prepares students, staff, and faculty to become leaders in their chosen field. 

The Office ensures that projects and plans fit within a larger framework and long-term campus vision. The Office works to preserve the integrity of the campus by maintaining and administering the Long Range Development Plan and ensuring that campus policies and programs related to sustainability and resource efficiency are integrated in all new development.

Major Goals

1. Preserve and enhance the aesthetic beauty of the campus, a critical part of student, staff, and faculty recruitment, retention, and satisfaction.

2. Ensure university resources are used efficiently, including space and energy.

3. Facilitate project development and capital planning in coordination with the Campus Facilities Planning Board, the Design Advisory Panel, and Facilities and Grounds.

4. Plan for a campus environment that meets the needs of a diverse student, staff, and faculty.

5. Assist with the regulatory and permitting process required for construction and renovation of projects on the campus.

6. Represent the Mānoa Campus on issues related to campus development at the community, city, and state levels.

Ongoing Projects

Building Design and Performance Standards

The Planning Office, together with Sea Grant College, the School of Architecture’s Center for Smart Building and Community Design, and the Office for Facilities and Grounds, is developing a package of policy documents that will clarify and articulate the campus’ values and goals with respect to the built environment and its physical facilities. These documents, separately and collectively, will guide campus decisions regarding building design, building renovations, and operations models.     
 
This document, titled UH Mānoa Building Design, Performance and Sustainability Guidelines (Phase 1) is the preamble to the more comprehensive UHM Building Design, Performance and Sustainability Standards (Phase 2).  This document is to become the platform on which the technical standards will be built and which consultants will be expected to follow in the design of future UHM facilities.

Space Survey and Integrated Planning

The UHM Space Survey and Integrated Planning (SSIP) Project is a spatial verification and survey process underway to serve the needs of the Office of Research Services (ORS) and the campus administration. The SSIP Project is currently identifying, inventorying, and modeling all assignable and non-assignable space on the Mānoa campus, including off-site research facilities. This project will provide the spatial information needed by ORS to develop an indirect cost proposal with respect to federally-funded research grants. As part of an on-going process, over a dozen students will be conducting spatial verification of several million square feet of UH Mānoa buildings, verifying floor plans against actual construction, cataloguing, analyzing, and documenting campus spaces and their use.