The spatial configuration and publicness of the university campus: interaction, discovery, and display on De Uithof in Utrecht

Abstract

This paper explores different degrees and forms of publicness and their relationship with the spatial configuration of a university campus. Based on a literature review, the concept of ‘publicness’ is developed to describe the dimensions of ‘interaction,’ ‘discovery,’ and ‘display’ on campus. The area selected for the case study is De Uithof campus of Utrecht University, located outside the urban fabric in a green environment. Spatial configuration analysis reveals that the two public spaces most-often used by students have high global and local integration scores as well as medium visibility scores. This promises much potential for the production of publicness in both spaces, whereas student surveys revealed some rather substantial differences in publicness between them. Acknowledging detailed differences in terms of physical design, functional facilities, and social composition enables an explanation for why the Academic Hospital Utrecht space lives up more the potential of publicness production than the Heidelberglaan space.