UNITY – Unity College has taken its first step toward a master plan aimed at redesigning areas of its campus to make the college more in tune with the environment and the community.

Faculty, staff, students and representatives of Portland-based PDT Architects gathered at the Unity Center for the Performing Arts over the weekend to brainstorm and discuss the challenge of configuring the campus for the future. PDT specializes in sustainable designs for education, health care, corporate offices and municipal facilities.

“It’s a way for us to think about the future of the campus,” college president Michael Thomashow said during a break from Saturday’s session. “We want to make future decisions on what is important to us as well as the community. How to create a truly ecological campus.”

Since assuming the mantle of president last year, Thomashow has moved to integrate the college with the community and bring more focus on its position as one of the premier environmental colleges in the country.

The 40-year-old college is situated on 225 acres of rolling farmland and forest and has 550 full-time students. Baccalaureate programs include natural resource management, wilderness-based outdoor recreation, aquaculture, environmental education and park management.

During the planning session, participants discussed changing the configuration of the loop road through the campus to emphasize pedestrian and bicycle travel; relocating residences; using low-impact, native building materials on construction projects; reducing the school’s carbon footprint; developing local sustainable food production; and planting decorative gardens and landscaping.

The round-table discussions also centered on using alternative sources of energy and locating future buildings in areas where they can take advantage of solar energy.

Thomashow said all of the ideas will be collected and handed over to the school’s architects for use as reference points while they are designing the master plan layout. He said some of the recommendations could be adopted immediately, while others would be considered long-term projects.

“There could be a lot of things you could do over a short period of time,” he said. “The way a place looks can be redefined with landscaping and other things.”

Thomashow said he plans to establish a future planning committee within the president’s office that would comprise students, faculty, staff and members of the community. He said the long-term goal is to provide the college with a plan that it can reference when considering future changes.

“We want to set the criteria. Should we keep certain buildings or not,” he said. “We want to create a real sense of what the future of the campus can be.”