Utile was hired in the spring of 2006 to assist in framing design guidelines for the new Harvard campus in Allston, across the Charles River from Harvard’s historic Cambridge home. Utile’s efforts included research of best practices urban design and campus design guidelines culled from American and European examples. Utile sought examples that integrate sustainable design and smart growth principles into the guidelines instead of those that prioritize the issue of architectural style and character.

One product of Utile’s study was a prioritized matrix of design guideline topic areas. The matrix was designed to emphasize front-end synthesis of transportation and utility infrastructure, parcel division logic to encourage individual building and landscape projects, and suggestion of the kinds of design features that should be common to new buildings. Each of the topic areas on the matrix were referenced to best practices examples to allow users of the matrix to understand how similar design guidelines have been described and graphically represented elsewhere. In addition, Utile created a series of plan and section diagrams to clarify the priorities and the interrelationship between categories of guidelines.

Utile’s work has subsequently informed the development of the Allston master plan and design guidelines by Cooper Robertson of New York, Harvard’s lead master planning consultant.