Facing the Engagement Crisis: What the University Campus Can Teach Our Cities
Written by Adam Scott, Experience Foundation.
Learnings from the University Design Forum Annual Conference
Too many cities are still built with yesterday's tools - object-first thinking that raises structures but leaves people disconnected. Meanwhile, digital worlds outshine our streets with richer, more magnetic experiences. Walking down any high street or city centre, the signals are clear: we’re living through an engagement crisis.
Civic trust is low. Participation is falling. Loneliness and social isolation are endemic. Our urban spaces - once the engines of connection and belonging - increasingly feel transactional, not transformational.
City-makers everywhere are feeling the pressure. But where should they turn for real lessons on re-engaging communities?
Look to the university campus
Why? Because no one feels the crisis more sharply. Universities are microcosms of our cities - and canaries in the coalmine. If a student can attend lectures online, socialise on their phone, and order dinner to their door, why ever leave their room? When every interaction becomes optional, engagement becomes endangered.
But some campuses are fighting back. They’re reimagining themselves as places of connection - catalysts for belonging, not just containers for buildings. And at last month’s University Design Forum Annual Conference at Here East in London, I spoke about one of the boldest examples: the Campus Reimagined programme at the University of Leeds.
Case Study: University of Leeds - From a Masterplan to a Movement
Campus Reimagined is not a traditional masterplan. It’s a once-in-a-generation programme to transform the University of Leeds into the ultimate participatory experience - a campus people shape, not just occupy.
Rather than default to buildings as the solution, Leeds asked: How do we align planning, operations, and lived experience to spark real belonging?
The answer: an Experience Masterplanning Framework, grounded in four key principles:
1. Layered to Last
Inspired by Stewart Brand and Frank Duffy’s Pace Layer model, the campus is seen as three interwoven layers - background (infrastructure, architecture), midground (interiors), and foreground (people, tech, and events). This approach makes the campus flexible, resilient, and alive.
2. Designed as an Ecosystem
Fifteen narrative-driven “patterns” - like Attraction, Participation, Movement, and Belonging - guide interventions across every scale. Front-of-house experience is enabled by back-of-house enablement.
3. Built to Begin
A “Start Now, Plan Longterm, Continuously Improve” approach prioritises quick wins, pilots, and activations. Physical builds are phased in - but momentum begins with engagement, not excavation!
4. Co-Created at Every Stage
Experience is not added later - it’s embedded from the start. And no initiative shows this better than the launch of Campus Reimagined Live!
Campus Reimagined Live! - A Culture-Shifting Launch
Every movement needs a moment. And for Campus Reimagined, that moment was Campus Reimagined Live! (CRL!) - a three-day activation event that ignited participation across the entire university.
More than an event, CRL! was a statement, writ-large across the campus: Your ideas, your campus!
Here’s what made it matter:
It was co-designed. From facilitation to feedback, the event was created by and for staff and students - and the energy reflected that.
It was visible, vibrant, and vital. Over 3,000 attendees. 400 in talks. 1,000 written contributions. Participation exceeded expectations — and inspired amazement across the sector.
It generated 180+ ideas. From quick wins to transformative proposals. Big themes? Nature. Food. Wellbeing. Comfort. Sustainability. A loud and clear call for more meaningful everyday experience.
It catalysed action. Six pilot projects - selected by the community - will be delivered in the next year. These “Six Big Ideas” will serve as living labs for how the campus evolves.
It set a new tone. Not just a new project - a new way of working. Iterative. Inclusive. Engaging from the outset. CRL! lit the fuse under a culture change.
Five Takeaways for City-Makers
What can city leaders and place-makers learn from Leeds? Here are five provocations to guide practice in the face of the urban engagement crisis:
1. Make Experience the Brief
Don’t layer experience on top - start with it. Design for how people want to feel, connect, and belong.
2. Act Before You Build
Spark momentum with live engagement - events, pilots, activations. Culture moves faster than concrete.
3. Think and Work as One Team
Align design, operations, and governance around a shared purpose. Break the silos between strategy and delivery.
4. Prototype the Future
Use every intervention to test and learn. From micro-events to major infrastructure, treat everything as an experiment.
5. Measure What Matters
Track how people feel, not just where they go. Emotional insight - not just data - is key to creating places that work.
Conclusion: From Campus to City
The Engagement Crisis is not abstract - it’s personal. We feel it in the silence of streets, the withdrawal from public life, the loss of shared moments. But as the University of Leeds shows, we can change course. With participation, vision, and creativity, we can spark places that reconnect us - places that rebuild civic trust and restore human connection.
So, let’s stop designing just buildings.
Let’s design journeys of participation.
Let’s begin with an experience foundation.
Many thanks to Will Reed, Jennifer Wilson, and Ann Allen and all the team at the University of Leeds for their inspiration (and notably Will's wonderful film for UDF) - and thank you to the UDF organisers and members for the invitation and their enthusiasm - Trevor Wills, Ian Goodfellow, Lianne Goddard, Hugo Spiers, Fiona Zisch, Suzi Winstanley, Del Hossain, Lia Doolan, Eleanor Magennis, Cora Kwiatkowski, Lyle Chrystie, Elie Gamburg, Elizabeth Ramani Armstrong, Lauren Blakely, Murray Forsyth, Tobias Glass, Julian Robinson, James Grimley, Craig Chettle, Robert Wolstenholme, Laura Kinnaird, Alan Dempsey, Rupert Goddard, Hiral Patel, Jude Harris, Tracy Meller, Richard James, John O'Mara and Professor Peter Madden.
Image credit: Adam Scott