Place Intelligence was engaged by one of Australia’s leading universities to measure the performance uplift on campus after the development of a $500-million precinct

Challenge
Our client, one of Australia’s top public research universities with a 60,000 student population, wanted to understand historical patterns of place use to quantify the impact of a new $500 million precinct.
The client’s “campus of the future” included a new transport interchange, a 60-key hotel, four new buildings, 3000sq m of commercial and retail and student housing for 1000 students.
Engagement
Our team led a comprehensive data analysis exercise to index patterns of place use and activity across every building on the campus. Capturing a historical data point for the campus, before the new development came online, allowed our client to progressively measure the benefit and impact of their new investment.
Our team built a comprehensive campus index to measure multiple years of place usage and movement in buildings and in public space. We established a baseline of campus usage to measure change over time, indexing yearly, monthly, weekly and daily activity.
Studies
- Campus precinct to highlight area footfall heat maps and statistical insights
- Campus roads to show relative demand within and surrounding the campus
- Campus buildings to show demand and activity profiles for each campus building
- Cross building movement to highlight the relationships of movements between buildings over time
- Footpaths, parking lots and public open space to highlight patterns of activity in each asset class over time
- Visitor origin analysis to highlight the home suburbs of campus users and students from across the metro area
- Human mobility data to analyse the performance of buildings and campus activity over time.
Impact
- The university was able to quantify place performance uplift after the completion of the new precinct
- Indexed the most-used buildings on campus to help inform capital expenditure decision making and building prioritisation
- Mapped the cross-precinct flow of people between each building, uncovering connections between faculty buildings, public spaces and campus precincts
- Quantified student activity patterns, to enable evidence-based planning and activation decisions
- Validated and measured the change in campus usage over time, using yearly, monthly, weekly and daily activity indices
- Quantified lost opportunity, including $6 million of off-campus leakage to a nearby shopping centre
- Our work supported multiple stakeholders, including the campus asset team’s life-cycle planning, and the experience and campus activation teams’ placemaking work.
“Place Intelligence data was used to inform an investment strategy into buildings at the end of their lifecycle.”
— Norion Ubechel, CEO, Place Intelligence
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