Exploring the campus trends in times of corona

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The uncertainty generated by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and restrictions has challenged the strategic vision on campus development and management, intensifying the existing financial, functional, and spatial complexities of the university campuses. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the impact of COVID-19 on campus management and assess the current supply of campus buildings in the light of existing changes that stem from remote education and work experience. This study draws on the vision and strategies that Delft University of Technology’s campus research team has developed since the early 2000’s. To this end, the team incrementally conducted interviews with the campus managers and compiled a campus database that encompasses organizational, functional, physical, and financial data on 13 Dutch Universities and 64 campus buildings. Qualitative findings demonstrate that while the campus managers developed considerable experience in facilitating online work and study processes during the COVID-19 pandemic, they acknowledge the value of the campus as the home base for interaction and focus. Ultimately, campus managers opt for a hybrid model that can simultaneously accommodate the online and physical work/study environments. By utilizing the campus database the capacity of the current campus supply to accommodate this hybrid condition is assessed. Despite the experience gained during the campus lockdowns, we argue that only a limited part of the campus supply can accommodate this hybridity. Finally, we discuss the potential strategies in campus development to decrease this gap between the demand and supply.