Shops, walkways eyed for Harvard Allston campus

CAMBRIDGE - The windswept and traffic-plagued trip over the Charles River from Harvard Square to Allston could become a pleasant stroll over a bridge lined with shops and covered walkways. It could also be a quick ride on a state-of-the-art tram. Or a jaunt above a decked-over riverside artery.

Those are among the blizzard of ideas to be released today by Harvard University professors and administrators asked to suggest ways the university should develop its 200 acres in Allston.

In a set of reports commissioned by President Lawrence H. Summers, four task forces offer a broad range of possibilities for the school. The reports contain no decisions, only suggestions and possibilities to give a master planning firm. But they represent the next step in the vision Summers laid out in October: a broad plan to locate ``a robust critical mass of scientific activities in Allston,'' along with student housing, cultural space, and new homes for the graduate schools of education and public health.

``There are a lot of ideas here with a lot of potential to generate great academic activity and much intellectual excitement, and to make a very big difference in the world,'' Summers said yesterday.

Many aspects of the new campus - especially reconfiguring roads and bridges - would require city and state approval.

In its search for a master planner, Harvard has winnowed the list to four firms: Foster and Partners, the London-based firm led by Sir Norman Foster that is heading up an expansion of the Museum of Fine Arts; Cooper, Robertson & Partners in New York, which did the master plans for Battery Park City and Boston's Seaport; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, now helping Columbia University expand into Harlem; and Rafael ViÄnoly, who designed the new Boston Convention Center.

A decision is expected soon.

Among the key suggestions in the reports is that Allston should include a significant chunk of undergraduate housing, constituting at least three out of the 12 undergraduate houses, and other student amenities, including possibly a library and a campus center. One scenario would be to move the ``Quad Houses,'' now located on Radcliffe Quad between Harvard and Porter squares, to Allston, and use the Quad for graduate housing.

Allston should also have graduate residences, the reports say, with the goal of housing at least half of graduate students on campus, in part to alleviate the city's housing crunch, in part to be competitive with rival universities.

The task force examining the sciences says space in Allston should not be used for traditional departments, but rather to foster multidisciplinary work on key areas of scientific advancement.

``If we want to address important topics like stem cells, genomics, and chemical biology, our faculty doesn't want to be hemmed in by older notions of how we organize ourselves,'' said Provost Steven E. Hyman.

The task force suggests choosing from a list of promising topics, from stem cells to innovative computing, and says Harvard should make a bigger investment in engineering and technology than it has done in the past.

In addition to moving the schools of education and public health to Allston, one task force also suggests using the new space for a collaboration between all the professional schools, focusing on executive education and the problems facing leaders throughout society, from global economic development to professional ethics.

Among the cultural options suggested by a task force on ``Allston life'' is a museum complex consisting of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, parts of the Peabody Museum, and space for contemporary art.

The task force brainstormed a variety of transportation options, including the simplest method - increasing service by the shuttle buses that now carry students to athletic facilities in Allston. The committee was impressed with a vehicle called SMRTram, which runs on rubber tires and needs only an 8-foot-wide lane.

It also said that Harvard should intersperse stores and restaurants throughout the Allston campus, and that it may need to offer subsidized rents to create a lively environment, at least in the early stages of building the campus - a project expected to continue for at least 50 years.

Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.