Accessibility and Polarities of Pedestrian Network in University Campuses. A Space Syntax Application

This paper examines the multiple interactions between pedestrian mobility systems and land use planning within the framework of Agenda 2030’s sustainability goals involving the integration of mobility networks with urban planning development (i.e., targets 11.2 and 11.3). The study focuses on suburban university campuses and science parks as significant cases. Specifically, two different campuses and science parks have been selected as case studies, i.e., Parma and Monserrato (metropolitan city of Cagliari), located in peripheral areas and built during the second half of the 20th century. The methodological approach is based on Space Syntax, to analyse the spatial configuration of the pedestrian infrastructure of each campus. First, a segment map reflecting all pedestrian routes on each campus has been created. Then, multiple measures have been calculated using the DepthmapX software, evaluating accessibility and identifying polarities. Subsequently, the strengths and weaknesses of each campus’s pedestrian infrastructure network have been identified and a comparison analysis between the two case studies has been performed to identify common and efficient space conformation characteristics according to the Space Syntax analysis. The study concludes with an analysis of the limitations of the methodology and provides suggestions for further research. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG