The development of South Lawn and the improvement of pedestrian flow on campus became a reality because of a donation by WKU alumni and Landscape Architect Mitchell Leichhardt. Previously the area was used as overflow parking for football games, as well as a place for soccer and football camps.
Bowling Green, Kentucky is a small town in South Central Kentucky. The census of 2000 showed it to be a tiny bit short of 50,000 in population. Never the less, it is the town seat of Warren County, which has approximately double that in population. Bowling Green originated as a river town and the Barren River upon which it was founded is a secondary tributary to the Ohio River, 75 miles to the north.
About a mile southwest from the original connection of Bowling Green and the river is a hill that rises up about 200 feet above the small bluff alongside the river. Today this hill is known as "Reservoir Hill" because of the rather obvious water holding tank located there.
A saddle of land swings away from Reservoir Hill in a mile long arc southwestward and it connects to another hill of even larger size. "College Hill" as it later came to be known, was about two miles from the town's point of origin on the Barren River.
In 1909 the concentration of development of the town of Bowling Green was still clustered between the Barren River and the feet of the two major hills. That year, the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Kentucky had passed a bill calling for the formation and funding of two institutes of higher learning, one in Richmond, and one in Bowling Green. In modern urban planning we might save the hill tops for some upscale trendy residential development, but in 1909, in Bowling Green, the hill furthest from town proper was given over to the development of a college campus. At that time, "the hill which became the home of Western (Kentucky University) was wild and rough, it offered a splendid site for the development of a large school plant.'
Immediately, Landscape Architect Henry Wright and Architect Brinton R. Davis were commissioned to draw plans for the siting of various buildings for the establishment of The Western Kentucky State Normal School. Their collaboration produced a plan that was followed very closely although not precisely. In that plan, the summit of College Hill served as the organizational element for the original buildings and greenspaces of the college.
Buildings for classrooms, administration offices, recital halls, and the library were arranged in a circular formation around the military crest of the hill. Open spaces fell between the buildings in beautiful proportion to their heights and masses. A circular drive linked the buildings to one another, and a graceful and pastoral system of sidewalks flowed gently over and around the hill top as a secondary tributary of conveyance.
Davis served as the official Architect for the school, designing and overseeing the construction of every building built up through 1937, when he died shortly after completing the installation of Henry Hardin Cherry Hall. Wright also remained in an influential position with the College's Board of Regents, and in 1930 convinced them to realize the need for drawings detailing a second phase of development, which he then undertook to prepare for them.
During the post-war enrollment boom of the 1940s, Western Kentucky State Normal School remained successful and evolved into Western Kentucky State Teacher?EUR(TM)s College. A new type of student came upon the scene: the returning GI. These former soldiers were generally a more serious sort of student, and often were married. A community of several dozen house trailers and cottages were built for them to purchase or rent at the southernmost edge of the campus and was dubbed "Veteran's Village."
The late 1950s saw another boom in enrollment for Western, and it's growth split the seams of its existing classrooms, labs, student center, dormitories and athletic facilities. As a result of this growth induced need, densely spaced development spread down three slopes of the hill, but most aggressively on the south side. Here, the college owned many dozens of acres between two major arterial highways.

 
By the 1960s and 1970s, the initial radial pattern designed for the top of the hill gave way to sincere chaos. The succeeding buildings were installed at such close proximity, with little or no greenspace between them and the older ones, that a person could literally not see the campus for the buildings. There was no grid of definable proportions, and there was no circular progression. There was only one building after another plopped down into the greenspaces of existing buildings.
The incorporation of round buildings into the university landscape did not really add in a positive way to the visitor's ability to understand his orientation on campus. Where once the spatial relationships of the buildings on campus were easily recognized, and the connections between those buildings were rationally understood, pedestrian links between facilities had become unclear.
The development on the slopes of the hill now resembled the effect of design by tornado. Buildings were fitted into the landscape like fingers into a glove. It is remarkable in some instances, that construction could have occurred in such tight spaces. However difficult it may be to thread ones way among the administration, classroom, physical plant, dormitory and athletics buildings by car, the pedestrian pace allows more time for recognition of landmarks or fragments of previously known landmarks.
The spatial orientation of the lower campus which sits on the toe of the slope of Western's Hill, has been salvaged by building one simple sidewalk. It is straight as a string, and wide, ranging in places from about 12 to 20 feet, and serves as an arterial street does, collecting from the tributary sidewalks of a dozen dormitories, six large parking areas and a wide assortment of large classroom buildings. The current president of the university privately calls that sidewalk "Millionaire's Walk." It links the dormitories at the southernmost end of campus, to the original circular drive at the crest of The Hill. "Millionaire?EUR(TM)s Walk" is one long straight swath with no particular focal point at either end, but its effect on the orientation of pedestrian access is truly of epic proportions. It has become the centrally located pedestrian spine of the present campus.
It is along this path that millionaires of the future currently walk. Many of the millionaires that Western Kentucky University has already produced contribute financially to Western, as alumni often do. University President Gary Ransdell has announced a goal of putting physical excellence back into a campus that was once nationally renowned for its lovely landscape of greenspace and buildings.
One such contribution came from distinguished alumni Mitchell Leichhardt, Landscape Architect. His most recent endowment was specifically given for the enhancement of a large expanse of greenspace, remarkably left undeveloped in the surge of modern additions to the campus. Prior to receiving Leichhardt,s gift for design and construction, the area known today as "South Lawn" never had a name. It had been utilized for 25 years as an overflow parking area for football tailgaters, and a convenient place for soccer and football camps. The site was generally grassy, with several large trees around the edges and a few more centrally positioned. This area was all that remained unimproved of the original site of Veterans' Village.
Prior to current development which resulted from the designs of Smith and Associates/DDS Engineering, there was a break in grade of about three feet across the middle of the site, over which one or two tailgaters per year fell or drove their vehicles. A single sidewalk bisected the northern half of South Lawn diagonally. At one corner three huge satellite dishes stared for some unseen target in the sky. Along another entire edge was visible and audible the service area of the Dero Downing University Student Center, complete with truck loading and unloading bays, garbage dumpsters, and recycling dumpsters.
The lawn was uneven with alternating bald and weedy areas in amongst a cool season lawn which could not hold up against the summer football camps. The site was dangerous because of its unforeseeable break in grade, and the service area along the north end was ugly and distracting. There was no site lighting, except at the faces of existing buildings.
In spite of its second class appearance and limited functional abilities, there was some use by pedestrians. The area was popular for the leisure use of frisbee and touch football enthusiasts. Summer soccer camps were held there, and people just looking for a sunny place to "hang out" were sometimes there. Students and staff walked across the muddy ground of the unnamed area going to class and fitness activities. When the town celebrated the 4th of July with fireworks in the football stadium, crowds of townies packed in with lawn chairs and blankets. Ransdell foresaw enhanced amenities upon South Lawn for all persons using the area. He expressed a need for a more genteel atmosphere in which vehicular use and pedestrian use could co-exist.
The vision of Ransdell extended beyond the limits of the greenspace of South Lawn. In fact, the development of South Lawn is counterpoint to the erection of a clocktower in the central pedestrian spine. In conjunction with the construction of a new classroom building for the Journalism Department, a sidewalk connection was being planned to link onto "Millionaire's Walk." At the juncture of this sidewalk from the nationally award winning Journalism Department and 'Millionaire's Walk" will be the new clocktower.
Using the soon to be built clocktower as an organizing element, a plan was conceived to impose a formal geometry upon the nearly rectangularly shaped South Lawn in order to facilitate its use as a pedestrian gathering area and a tailgaters dream. The design team liked the idea of bringing formal geometry back onto the campus as a means to paying homage to the original campus design of Western Kentucky University. With the strong form of the new clocktower they felt a strong imprint was needed on the table cloth of greenspace which is dedicated to it.
The view when walking northward along the existing diagonal sidewalk and the focal point at its terminus at the southwestern corner of the student center was of the ends of vehicles parked in three spaces reserved for staff of the student center. This route is the one most used by students in their everyday routine, and tailgaters in accessing the crosswalk to the football stadium. To enhance the aesthetic experience of walking this path, it was recommended that these parking spaces be removed and replaced with planting areas. This suggestion was not followed due to the extreme need for vehicular parking on campus, but the areas adjacent to the spaces were re-landscaped to blend aesthetically with the planting renovation of the Master Plan.
In the Master Plan, two 8 foot sidewalks slice across the space radially from the clocktower plaza, creating triangular shaped pieces of turf. Already existing on site was one 8 foot wide sidewalk which cut diagonally from Big Red Way, at the near corner of the student center, across the northern end of the lawn to the central spine walkway at a point near the center of the proposed clocktower plaza. The grade along this walk is very gentle, and even with regrading of the site, the designer's were able to keep this walk as is.
Decorative lights fixed on 10 foot height lampposts at 26 foot spacing will shine down along the southern major walkway, enabling the route to be used more safely at night.
A minor walkway of 4 feet in width was made to intersect the southern major walkway at approximately half length. This walk has the happy feature of serving to connect the small parking lot already on the western edge of South Lawn with the main entrance of the Raymond B. Preston Health and Activity Center on the southern border of the lawn. It runs parallel to the major diagonal walk of the northern section of South Lawn, reinforcing the formal geometry of the site.
At the juncture of these two southern walkways is planned a circular plaza, imitating the circular plaza to be built around the clocktower in form and function. There will be four benches there, equidistantly spaced around the edge of the plaza for the benefit of the frisbee throwers and football players as well as more passive users of the lawn.

The satellite dishes have now been removed as the entire site has been graded and dead and severely deformed trees were removed. Building and planting the earthen berm were implemented as well. A clocktower, still under construction will be a focal point for the improved area.
To address the situation of the abrupt break in grade, the lawn was divided along the break into two halves of unequal size. Inserting a native limestone retaining wall which radiates from the clocktower plaza toward the stadium at nearly 90 degrees to the existing parking lot along Big Red Way, the original campus building elements are recalled to the site.
On the top of the hill, there are hundreds of feet of limestone retaining walls solving the challenge of severe changes in grade amongst the various buildings. On South Lawn the retaining wall is held to 2 feet in average height, and three sets of steps, each six feet wide cut through the wall at equidistant spacing to facilitate people?EUR(TM)s moving easily between the two levels of the lawn.
A secondary sidewalk of 6 feet in width is designed to parallel this straight wall, creating a planting area between the two elements. An evergreen hedge is planted immediately above the wall and from the upper lawn, the retaining wall has already become invisible. Eventually trees for light shade, ground cover and spring bulbs will be installed in this planting area with benches inset and bollard style lighting for safety and effect.
At each end of the wall is a proposed barrier free access between the levels. One barrier free path would occur along the central spine, and one at a new side walk running parallel to the spine along the edge of the existing parking lot on the western edge of South Lawn. This barrier free walk also serves to collect pedestrians parking in the existing hard surface parking lots immediately adjacent to the stadium, who walk across Big Red Way to South Lawn. An evergreen hedge will separate this walkway from South Lawn proper to screen the view of the cars parked there from pedestrians on the lawn.
South Lawn's phase one effort included removal of the satellite dishes; grading operations over the entire site; removal of dead and severely deformed trees; building and planting the earthen berm and surrounding area; construction of the fieldstone retaining wall and the shrub hedge and landscape beds adjacent to it; construction of two sidewalks; installation of irrigation and the bermudagrass lawn; installation of new trash cans along "Millionaires Walk" and the re-configuration of the service drive along the northern edge of the South Lawn.
As this article is being written, construction has begun on the clocktower, as evidenced by chainlink fencing around the perimeter of the site of the plaza, and the installation of a temporary detour sidewalk adjacent to that fence. LASN