Klagenfurt University could use a Campus
May 15th, 2008 . by Daniel HölblingDon’t get me wrong, I love studying at Klagenfurt University, but whenever the weather gets more and more appealing I start dreaming of some cool cafe’s and other stuff on the university campus.
Currently the only café that is really located inside the university is the iQ. And that’s ok, but the university is lacking more open space. Maybe you get what I mean by this picture.
(click to enlarge picture)
The red area is university property, while the yellow stuff is parking and the blue stuff is streets (with parking).
What happens is that whenever you step outside the building after 10 meters or so you happen to either reach a parking lot or a street.
If you follow this geo-link you might find that there is plenty of green around the university, but when you are there the perception is that there is only cars 
.
So here it comes, cut down some roads and open up the area. Remove the front parking (eastern parking lot) and make it a nice little park for students. Also I’d like to see the road in the east closed down and some nice cafés opened up. Giving so much space to parking is just a waste.
On the parking side: Before you can get anywhere near planning a cooler campus we need to get public transport in Klagenfurt up to speed. There should be a frequent shuttle bus from the nearby train station that may also take students to the Wörthersee in summer, so more people would consider the train a viable alternative to the car. The STW bus should come every 15 minutes at least, having 2 buses per hour is simply unacceptable.
Klagenfurt university may be one of the few universities in Austria that isn’t directly located inside the city so you could make something out of the place without having to redesign transportation for a whole city. But as it’s currently more space is wasted than really used. It all feels too small and not really comfortable.
…the sad thing about dreams concerning klagenfurt university (KU) is that it is just too obvious that any big change will come into effect as this would need something like an overall concept and this has and will never exist in the city planning of celovec. so if ever only fragments will be realised. but the fascinating thing about this issue is that there could be really great improvements made and the results might be worth a lot of effort.
so as you said there is too much space donated to parking and streets.
so what should be done:
- the car parking east of KU is just attracting cars into the should be campus area. to replace it (as there many students arriving by car as not only klagenfurt public transport is terrible but as well is the transport to klagenfurt) the existing big parking in west should be toped with another layer. this could be done with a very cheap steal structure, as it is situated lower than the südring (city bypass left of the parking in the west) the existing inlet to lakesidepark could be used and no ramps would be needed.
- the universitätsstraße between the mensa (red colored building in the east) and the südring should be closed for traffic and be reduced to pedestrian and bike ways (continuing on to the lake) as well as a one way bus lane.
- the existing and already funded project of a tram from europapark via loretto to strandbad with the further plan for an extension aside the existing railway trac to the mentioned station some kilometers east should be constructed and extended to university so that the line would then go from university to strandbad and from there one the train station klagenfurt lend. there could be four to five stations between the end stops and with the right train system the link from KU to the train station could be done in less than seven minutes.
the bus connection to viktring should be improved and stop directly at KU
all post/öbb buses arriving to klagenfurt from the west should stop at KU
KU should be linked with the bike lane network of klagenfurt (with facts like these, that even very basic things like this haven’t been done yet you can see that klagenfurt really lacks of any city planning)
- the street crossing universitätsstraße leading north-south should be pedestrian area as it has no necessary transport function. this should make the walk from KU to minimundus more attractive and could be combined with a roofing. at minimundus another inner city bus line has its stops as well as buses going in and out of klagenfurt. with an extension of student tickets to this buses for innercity transport the existing bus network could (with changes in the shedules) serve KU every ten minutes or less which should be minimum level of service for making public traffic attractive. the pricing policy for students has to be changed none the less.
- the yard between the new and old university building has to be closed to any cars (delivery limited to certain hours). there could be concerts held there in the evening and it would be a lunch and outside studying area during day time. there should be some kind of winter garden (that can be opened in summer) for using part of this area during the cold months.
I agree on the fact that the university lacks open space for recreation and relaxing. The Mensa Café in the Aula is simply a mess
However in my opinion the campus – in its compact size – has benefits. In Graz for instance both, the University as well the University of Technology, are spread over a rather wide area. Without bike you are lost. So even last week – where there was a rather big conference in Klagenfurt – people from outside mentioned that they liked the way the campus in KLU is organized 
The bad thing however is that in between main entrance and bus station there will be a new building next year .. that’s Uni-Klu’s solution to “open spaces” ;(
- mathias
New building between main entrance and bus station… tbh this is currently completely dead space, except for that little dirt track to the bus station it has no real use right now.
But removing it isn’t gonna beautify the campus.
I think the campus should be more open.
When I (as a student) have never even remotely considered to visit the campus for other reasons than learning and working, the whole planning thing went completely wrong.
University should be for students, not only their work.