Building community (gardens) on university campuses: masterplanning green-infrastructure for a post-COVID moment

Abstract

Urban community gardens are well known as safe and friendly spaces that help shape a sense of community. Their capacity to reflect these ideals in the higher education policy sector has been less examined, even though students are particularly well-disposed to reaping the healing benefits of gardens. COVID-19 displaced students and shut down campuses globally. With Australian universities reopening, fostering a sense of community and re-establishing campus culture is among top priorities. This paper uses a multiple case-study methodology to explore how a unique policy instrument—the university ‘masterplan’–expresses the benefits of campus community gardens, as green community spaces, and how they might better aid universities in achieving strategic missions. The research compares dominant themes in the community garden literature with the visions of campus masterplans to understand how community gardens might be better positioned as tools for place and community building. The results provide a finer-grained understanding of green infrastructure in campus master planning for a post-COVID-19 moment.