Dhe problem starts with the plural. What is the correct term when talking about more than just one campus? Campuses, the campuses or even campuses? The dictionary names the campuses and even allows campuses with the note “colloquial”. The meaning of the word of Latin origin is “entire facility of a university, university campus”.
But the problem with the plural continues. Because the number of universities and colleges that has grown in recent decades has led to a large number of campus locations. The large number can be explained on the one hand by newly founded academic institutions in the public sector – often in medium-sized and sometimes small towns – and on the other hand by the increased proportion of corresponding private educational institutions. There would be enough buildings on a campus just like that. But larger and smaller companies also adorn themselves with the term. There is often a reference to science through research and development, but this is not mandatory when it comes to naming. The problem with the plural goes further – towards a real plurality.
Campus does not have to mean academy
A look at the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia shows the spectrum. The Metro Campus is one of the projects in the state capital Düsseldorf. The wholesale group Metro is planning the development of a climate-friendly and inclusive urban quarter at the interface between the districts of Flingern, Düsseltal and Grafenberg, where the head office and a wholesale market are currently located. What’s the point?
Jean-Christophe Bretxa, Chief Executive Officer of the real estate company Metro Properties, which belongs to Metro AG, reports: “Our headquarters, which will remain at the location, will be combined with living and working areas in the future, which will be combined with gastronomy, a market hall, retail trade, handicrafts and studios, local recreation and leisure facilities in public parks and gardens.” This variety of uses in an open structure, which Jean-Christophe Bretxa describes as the “new urbanity in European urban planning” in the sense of the 15-minute city, could be created over a total area of nine hectares.
Looking at what connects helps
A few kilometers away in the Ruhr area there is one campus not far from the next. In Essen, the Aldi North Campus was recently completed and the ThyssenKrupp Campus, which is now to be further developed, was completed some time ago. Business and science are also to be combined in the Thurmfeld research and innovation campus as a new use of an old brownfield site.
In Bochum, the Ruhr University was the first of the newly founded universities in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s – as such on a campus in the original meaning of the word. A health campus was later built in the immediate vicinity. Now, with the development of the health campus II, as is so often the case in the Ruhr area on an industrial wasteland, another offer for specialists from the health economy is planned. And the current campus activities in Germany’s largest metropolitan area alone include significantly more locations and concepts.
