On Serendipitous Campus Meetings: A User Survey

Sascha Naomi Jansz (), Mark Mobach, Terry van Dijk, Esther de Vries and Roeland van Hout
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Sascha Naomi Jansz: Department of Spatial Planning and Environment, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 9712 CP Groningen, The Netherlands
Mark Mobach: Research Group Facility Management, Research Centre for Built Environment—NoorderRuimte, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, 9747 AS Groningen, The Netherlands
Terry van Dijk: Department of Spatial Planning and Environment, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 9712 CP Groningen, The Netherlands
Esther de Vries: Tranzo, Tilburg School for Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
Roeland van Hout: Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-32

Abstract: With campuses opening up and stimulating interactions among different campus users more and more, we aim to identify the characteristics of successful meeting places (locations) on campus. These can help practitioners such as campus managers and directors to further optimize their campus to facilitate unplanned or serendipitous meetings between academic staff and companies. A survey on three Dutch campuses, including questions on both services and locations, was analyzed both spatially and statistically using principal component (PC) and regression analysis. Four PCs were found for services (Relax, Network, Proximity and Availability) and three PCs were found for locations (Aesthetics, Cleaned and Indoor Environment). Personal characteristics as explanatory variables were not significant or only had very small effect sizes, indicating that a campus’ design does not need to be tailored to certain user groups but can be effective for all. The pattern of successful locations is discussed, including the variables in each PC. These PCs provide a framework for practitioners who want to improve their campus’ design to further facilitate unplanned meetings, thus contributing to cooperation between campus users, hopefully leading to further innovation.

Keywords: campus design; spaces; services; serendipity; unplanned meetings; interactions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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