I and my research colleagues agree with the editorial calling for broader involvement in questions of campus architectural aesthetics. We have in fact been engaged in just this kind of work for several years, developing the Structured Public Involvement protocol for these purposes.

We have most recently designed and delivered the public meetings that measured hundreds of Louisville citizens’ aesthetic preferences regarding the design of the new bridges across the Ohio River. We have carried out similar processes for measuring the aesthetic preferences of a neighborhood for the architectural design of a proposed light rail center in Louisville, and many other community planning and design questions.

A call for public involvement into questions that were heretofore considered “too complex” for the “uninformed” is now appropriate. People need not be architects, engineers or planners to have legitimate, useful input into how their money is spent on public infrastructure. They are, in the final analysis, the true client for the project, and this is no less true for members of the campus community.

Dr. Ted Grossardt

Research program manager

Kentucky Transportation Research Center, College of Engineering