How To Build A Campus Culture With Urban Planning.

Town planners may be able to take a cue or two from the design of university campuses.

Let me take you back to the days of Ancient Rome, where the ideal city was planned around a central town square. The most important institutions of city life were located around the square, and around them were the various buildings and dwellings that made up the built environment of an Ancient Roman city. Every thing was designed around the central town square.

Creating a place for people to congregate is one thing. However attempting to transfer the atmosphere of a uni campus to a suburban town square is a tad more difficult.

Creating a sense of being a part of something, a we’re in this together, a I don’t know you but lets stand side by side since we’re in the same place, a shared experience, is another matter. It seems to be more likely something you’d find on a uni campus, rather than in an actual town.

Building an environment that produces a great experience for the people who use it, is good design and good business. The culture of that environment has roots in the experience, which is influenced by how natural it is for people to interact from a central location, outwards. Designing and building from a central location works because it prioritises what is most important. When the most important thing is designed from the centre, with subsequent priorities designed around that, the user experience is better.

Do “closed” communities, such as universities, win out over “open” communities, when it comes to creating an actual and real sense of community?