Reframing campus possibilities through integrated data insights: University of Washington Bothell

UW BOTHELL CAMPUS

At the University of Washington Bothell, expansion started not with new walls, but with new insight. 

This 6,000-student campus, located just north of Seattle, was experiencing challenges common to many campuses. In 2022, with campus housing only accommodating 6% of students, on-campus activity was low, negatively impacting student life and making it challenging to support the evolving needs of students.

UW Bothell needed to reevaluate its expensive brick-and-mortar growth plans. Rather than adding new buildings, the university partnered with MKThink to ask a key question: 

How can the campus support growth, while better serving our diverse and evolving student body now and in an uncertain future?  

Over the course of six months, MKThink collaborated with faculty, students, and administrators to gain a deeper understanding of the campus, the University’s culture and aspirations, and how space was being utilized and perceived.  

COMMUNITY MAPPING showing distributed perception of the campus

Through facilities analysis, collective mapping, community engagement, and space capacity modeling, the team revealed a series of key insights and opportunities: underutilized office spaces, hyper-distributed departmental presence leading to identity and wayfinding challenges, insufficient student and faculty amenities, and buildings that didn’t optimally support the student experience.  

Instead of investing in more square footage, MKThink brought its ethos of "Build Less, Solve More" to help UW Bothell focus on optimizing what it already had.

The opportunities uncovered were transformative: 

• 23% of existing assigned square footage (excl. parking & service spaces) could be repurposed for new student-first uses. 

• Classroom capacity could grow to 2.5X without adding campus square footage. 

• Avoiding unnecessary construction could save the university an estimated $148 million in capital costs. 

• Activating 24,500 square feet of underutilized space along the central promenade could create new zones for student services, gathering, and study, critical in boosting time spent on campus by the university’s commuter students.  

• Improved parking policies and dining options would incentivize further campus activity. 

REACTIVATION OPPORTUNITY through ground floor space recapture and optimization along the main campus spine 

In keeping with its “Build Less, Solve More” philosophy, MKThink employed its trademark Strategy Tool to determine how, by right-sizing classrooms, expanding class schedules, and its hybrid offering, UW Bothell could realize significant capacity gains without adding square footage.  

STRATEGY TOOL IN ACTION Modeling classroom capacity with occupancy and utilization in mind 

However, UW Bothell’s core challenge wasn’t just about space efficiency; it was also about identity. Students wanted places to meet, collaborate, and linger; faculty needed flexible environments that supported hybrid learning. The optimized plan brought both together, turning inefficiency into inclusion. 

UW Bothell took the opportunity to reimagine how the campus could manifest the key value held across all stakeholder groups interviewed: 

“Community is at the Heart of UW Bothell”.  

The result was a reactivated campus, one designed for connection, student experience, and community strength.  

OPTIMIZATION RODMAP as a guide for implementation sequencing

Core to the MKThink approach was flexibility. Any campus optimization effort must support a range of future possibilities. As UW Bothell continues to explore how its student body and learning models may impact its educational delivery models, the campus optimization projects help the university address current challenges while preserving flexibility for the future.   

FUTURES FRAMEWORK ensures flexibility

The UW Bothell project illustrates how growth doesn’t always require more walls; sometimes it just takes seeing what’s already there, more clearly.

Through collaboration, data, and empathy, the university transformed insight into impact, expanding access, enriching student life, and avoiding millions in unnecessary construction costs, ultimately making a commuter campus feel more like a community. 

As more campuses grapple with evolving learning models, student demographics, and needs, planning for uncertain futures requires strategically refining the problem to solve, aligning solutions with institutional priorities, and inspiring innovation that maximizes existing resources. 

What are you seeking to optimize on your campus? We invite you to reach out and chat with us by following this link.