Several progress reports released over the past year reinforced the broad components of the University’s plan for an Allston campus centered around undergraduate housing, science facilities, and graduate schools, while for the first time adding concrete details to the proposals.

A year after Harvard hired Cooper, Robertson & Partners to create a master plan for Allston, the firm released an interim report on June 2 which collected and discussed many of the concepts that University planners had raised over the last year.

This followed April’s release of the Allston Science and Technology Task Force’s report calling for the construction in Allston of two 500,000-square-foot science complexes, which will house interdisciplinary research and new initiatives like the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

In addition to suggesting possible areas for the science buildings, Cooper, Robertson’s report outlines scenarios for incorporating new graduate and undergraduate housing, relocation of the Graduate School of Education and the School of Public Health, a strengthened river crossing, and improvements to the Allston community.

All of the proposals for founding Houses in Allston place a total of 1,500 undergraduates close to the Charles River, in some cases directly facing Cambridge’s River Houses.

David McGregor, the firm’s managing director, emphasized when the report was released that it was still too early to begin thinking about specific building designs or choosing among the suggested locations.

“There are a lot of decisions that can’t be known today,” he said.

Harvard’s plans for Allston over the last year have seldom come with specific timetables, and the formulation of a master plan, which Harvard must undertake before its expansion, could take years.

The next step in that process will occur this fall, as University officials present the interim report to faculty, students, and community members.

University President Lawrence H. Summers said earlier this month that the Allston planning has “given us a great deal to think about...in terms of long-run possibilities none of us will probably ever have a chance to see.”

TRANSPORTING UNDERGRADUATES

The idea of locating undergraduate Houses in Allston is not new. In May 2004, a University task force recommended building up to eight Houses across the river, which would have included up to 3,000 undergraduates.

The new report plots only four Houses in Allston, at 375 students per house. The first new Houses would replace other undergraduate housing, even though later Houses might expand the College’s student body.

“Growing the students is not a first-stage issue,” Summers said earlier this month.

Although Harvard’s property in Allston extends as far south as I-90, the latest report confirmed that planning for new Houses is focused entirely on the Charles River, in some cases replacing existing buildings there.