Campus Reimagined conducted research to understand how our campus is used today, and where it isn’t working as well as it could.
What did we do?
40 buildings were chosen to be included in the study as a representative mix of building types and uses across campus.
A team of ‘data recorders’ were allocated different buildings. Over a three-week period in early March 2025, these recorders noted the number of people in each space in each building, at each hour between 9am and 4pm, Monday to Friday.
Each building had a minimum of two weeks of observations, adding up to 80 individual data points per room (eight per day x five days a week x two weeks). Where the room was behind a closed door with no way to look in, they knocked on the door and then made an observation.
The recorders took into account what we call ‘signs of life’ – where a desk or office looked like someone was in, but could have been in a meeting or getting a coffee when the observation was being made. For the purposes of this study, anywhere with ‘signs of life’ was treated as a person being in the room.
What happened next?
These findings have been brought together with your feedback, including input at Campus Reimagined Live! 2025 and the results of the Campus Reimagined Student Survey, to begin to identify how we could change campus to make it easier to use, more sustainable, and a more welcoming place for everyone to enjoy.
No data should be observed in isolation. Any survey has inherent weaknesses, and we are using this alongside other data sources. Additionally, we do not intend to use this data to make any planning decisions about specific buildings – rather, as we consider campus use in its entirety.
