Living Lab: P-Olympos Bio-receptivity

Collaboration between students and UU management with their own campus as a testing ground.

Students and employees of Corporate Real Estate & Campus have filled the baskets together with recycled materials, including debris from the Dom tower. In doing so, they have contributed to the construction of the modular, circular and energy-generating P-Olympos car park on the edge of the Utrecht Science Park.

What did the collaboration entail?

80 students from the Faculty of Science helped design a study that examines ecosystem services (such as mosses) on rock walls around car parks and explores ecosystem synergies with surrounding vegetation. Research and education came together in the university's own area, and it was investigated how the construction of a new building could be integrated into the existing landscape and contribute to local biodiversity. Corporate Real Estate & Campus wanted to innovate in the field of sustainability in various ways for a new car park. They also wanted to work more closely with their own students and scientists so that Corporate Real Estate & Campus projects would contribute more to making the campus sustainable. For Van Dom tot Steengoed, it was one of the interesting places they brought the Dom rubble to.

Purpose of collaboration in education

For the Bio-Inspired Innovation students, this lab was an opportunity to carry out research in practice. They spent an afternoon helping to create the gabions they were going to research themselves. Students also learn in a complex practical situation how vegetation develops on different types of rocks.

(Intended) result

A visible living lab on its own campus as a continuous real-life experiment for students. This cooperation continues.

Collaborating party on behalf of UU

Faculty of Science - MA Bio-Inspired Innovation

Collaborating external party

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