CAMPUS neustadt
Hochschule Bremen

Cities are vital for sci­ence, cul­ture, and the cre­ative indus­tries, because direct and ana­log exchange in urban envi­ron­ments is fun­da­men­tal to these sup­pos­ed­ly soft pro­duc­tions. The more dig­i­tal the work­ing meth­ods, the more ana­log the per­son­al exchange of information.

That’s why uni­ver­si­ties need cities, and cities need their universities.

The great poten­tial of uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges for urban life and for inner-city and neigh­bor­hood devel­op­ment can be observed in all major uni­ver­si­ty cities. Stu­dents not only bring life to the open-plan cafés and nar­row pubs, as well as to squares, parks, and river­banks of a city, they are often part of and ini­tia­tors of tol­er­ant mix­es in so-called neigh­bor­hoods (Kiezen). Uni­ver­si­ties cre­ate new uses for old build­ings through diverse teach­ing and work spaces. In the case of spe­cial­ized degree pro­grams, a mul­ti­tude of entre­pre­neur­ial spin-offs sus­tain­ably stim­u­late the com­mer­cial real estate mar­ket. Fur­ther­more, stu­dent projects can use the neigh­bor­hood as a learn­ing and research facil­i­ty and help devel­op it with grow­ing exper­tise. Bre­men Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences is already an inte­gral part of the city cen­ter and, in par­tic­u­lar, a key play­er in urban devel­op­ment in Bre­men’s Neustadt dis­trict. The col­lab­o­ra­tion between the City of Bre­men and Bre­men Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences is there­fore con­tin­u­ing a process that opti­mal­ly coor­di­nates these syn­er­gies: to bet­ter con­nect the uni­ver­si­ty with the Alte Neustadt dis­trict and to raise the pro­file of its location.

The ​“Bre­men Uni­ver­si­ty Cam­pus” work­shop, which met on Feb­ru­ary 26, 2014, at Bre­men Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, took the first step toward an inte­grat­ed approach to the Alte Neustadt dis­trict and the uni­ver­si­ty. This doc­u­men­ta­tion is intend­ed to pro­vide a report on this exchange and serve as a start­ing point for fur­ther, more con­crete projects.