Situated approximately eight miles south of downtown Durham, this corporate park was founded in 1959 to promote collaborative scientific research among government agencies, corporations, and three major universities in the region: Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1958 City & Town Planning Associates prepared the park鈥檚 preliminary concept plan and landscape architect Lewis Clarke created the master plan for its first phase of development. The following year, the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission was formed to assure orderly development of the park and its public infrastructure, including the establishment of guidelines that aimed to preserve the landscape鈥檚 vernacular qualities. Today, Research Triangle Park is the largest of its kind in the United States, housing more than 200 companies across nearly 7,000 acres.
Unlike other research parks established in the mid-twentieth century, such as Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, California, Research Triangle Park was not initially ass