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Areas of Focus

The Strategic Facilities Assessment offered a full picture of our campus and potential areas of focus for the future.  While we anticipate considering potential campus updates and projects over a period of many years, as research and teaching needs, the external environment and budget allow, we did identify several areas of focus:

  • Invest in the Waterfront
    As Iselin Dock (also know as the Main Dock) comes to the end of its useful life, WHOI has an opportunity to think about how we improve functionality of dock resources for the WHOI community and provide a world class research platform for the many partner organizations who use the dock.  If the ocean is at the center of all we do, the dock is paramount to that work. Last year, the town of Falmouth and WHOI received funding from the Massachusetts Seaport Economic Council to study the replacement of Iselin Dock.  We are appreciative of that partnership and are moving forward with initial steps toward planning for dock investments.  At the same time, WHOI is evaluating how to structure our dock use to create a working waterfront that prioritizes our water dependent programmatic needs while increasing accessibility to this important space.
  • Optimize Village Hill
     Its proximity to the waterfront has made the Village Hill campus a critical part of our infrastructure since 1948.  The assessment pointed out a number of opportunities to improve the safety, accessibility and integration of the campus with the community.  It also highlighted some potential risks associated with climate change and rising sea level rise.  We can anticipate that any projects at Village Hill will consider those issues, as well as operational requirements associated with replacement of the Main dock.
  • Maximize Quissett Campus
     The most recent part of our campus, Quissett was designed to create flexibility for future research and support needs for the WHOI community.  In addition, there are opportunities to preserve and enhance green and open space on Quissett.
  • Update existing buildings
    The assessment identified a number of deferred maintenance projects that will be prioritized over time and opportunities to transform existing space to better meet current research requirements.