Meeting places of the Univer-city: On serendipitous encounters in a growing university area

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the ways in which a university, taking on the scale of a city of its own, affords meetings for researchers and teachers between disciplines. How does the continuous transformation and expansion of the university's physical environment affect the everyday lives and serendipitous encounters of the researchers active within it? The aim of the paper is to develop a conceptualization to facilitate discussions and analyses of urban transformations and its relation to serendipitous and informal meetings in urban areas. The paper takes Lund University as a case and uses different methods, such as time-geographical notations and Perec-inspired observations studies, to develop five different aspects that allow us to take measure of urban configurations and their potential for serendipitous meetings and encounters.

Keywords

• Universities
• Urban development
• Meeting places
• Research practice