Since the opening of the Walter A. Buehler Alumni Visitor Center, it has proven to be a very successful and popular location for special events on campus. Located on the south side of the UC Davis campus, the 1.5 acre site is prominently situated along Mrak Hall Drive at Old Davis Road, across from the UC Davis Arboretum to the north and the Center for the Performing Arts to the west. The two-level building can be viewed from Interstate 80. The Alumni Visitor Center was designed to be a focus for visitor and alumni events and administration. The genesis of the project was to create a permanent home for the Cal Aggie Alumni Association. A second project goal was to create a ?EUR??,,????'??Front Door of the Campus?EUR??,,????'??, where visitors could arrive, be greeted and then toured through the campus. The landscape site plan features a variety of outdoor gathering areas, including an arboretum walk. The heart of the site plan is a large hardscape and circular grass plaza, to the north of the building, designed as a setting for special events and informal gatherings. A long, continuous curving wall, of cast in place colored concrete, encloses the area providing seating for multiple groups or individual users. A curvilinear garden walk along the eastern edge of the site, was designed to be a teaching resource and creates an arboretum connection from the Alumni Visitor Center to the University Arboretum at Putah Creek. Prior to the development of the project, an impressive collection of plant species had been planted on the site and was being used, by the Environmental Horticultural Department, as teaching specimens. The existing trees from the Environmental Horticulture collection were preserved and incorporated into the design of the arboretum walk. The curvilinear path alignment allows the visitor to view each specimen tree in a focused spatial context. To further enhance the campus horticultural teaching collection, and consistent with the UC Davis theme of ?EUR??,,????'??Campus as Arboretum,?EUR??,,????'?? the planting design and species selection were carefully collaborated with the University Arboretum. The color palette of blue and gold, a tribute to the University and the Cal Aggie Alumni Association, was used in the plant material selection. Bicycle transportation and parking is very important at UC Davis. The main building entry, located on the south facade, features a continuous arcade. Bike parking was developed as an extension of the arcade system. This location for the bike parking is conveniently equidistant from the main building entry and the beginning of the arboretum garden walk. From this point, it is possible for pedestrians to explore the arboretum walk, passing among the teaching collection of ornamental trees with under story plantings of blue and gold, proceed into the central open space of the Visitor Center, then continue along the arboretum walk to the University Arboretum. Firm's Role: Antonia Bava Landscape Architects provided site and landscape design and documentation including: site planning, grading, landscape construction, hardscape, and softscape areas. Work included schematic design through construction observation.