The completion of the City Campus project plan is approaching

The project planning of the University of Oulu's City Campus is progressing, and the views of the faculties and student representatives on the project's goals and the space needs have now been well gathered.

The new City Campus will be located next to the stations in Raksila, about two kilometers from the university hospital and Kontinkangas' university activities, and a few hundred meters from the Välkkylä student village. The planning takes into account the estimate that from the end of the decade, a more significant part of university teaching will be hybrid or distance education. This will be supported by versatile interaction technology coming to campus.

Planning in faculties

Since summer, project planning has been done strongly through the university's faculties. Faculties have expressed their future space needs in writing and in interviews. Recently, there has been a survey of research units asking them about their own preferred primary locations. The needs of separate and focus units and support services have also been and will be clarified.

Each faculty as well as students and library has had their own representative in the project planning group who has involved people in the planning.

“In the Faculty of Humanities, I have presented the project and its progress about once a month at our ‘Missä mennään’ events. Similarly, our own campus team at the faculty has met regularly and taken information forward to study programmes. We have answered the questionnaires and been interviewed,” says Jari Sivonen, the contact person for the Faculty of Humanities.

“At the School of Economics, together with our Dean, we will again hold information sessions next week, one for our staff and the other for our students. Student info session is organized in co-operation with our student organization Finanssi,” says Sauli Sohlo, contact person at the School of Economics.

Faculty liaison officers are the primary sources of information on the progress of project planning and they can also bring greetings to the project planning team. If you have any views or questions, please feel free to contact your faculty contact person. A list of project planning team members is at the end of this newspiece.

Representatives from faculty, students, and staff have envisioned a future City Campus in two workshops, in September and November. After the first seminar, a community-wide survey was conducted, and the responses – both enthusiastic and critical – will be used in the project planning. A total of 2014 responses to the survey were received, most of them from students.

The space program and the quality, structural, technical and environmental objectives have made it possible to prepare cost estimates for the central campus as target price estimates. The total cost estimate is presented in the project plan to be completed in December.

The RTS environmental certificate has been chosen as the environmental certificate, which already guides the goals during project planning. So far, there is no carbon footprint calculation for the City Campus because there is not yet enough information about the building.

The board of directors makes the decisions

The preparation of the project plan is based on the decision made by the Board of Directors of the University of Oulu on 28 April 2020. The Board last discussed the City Campus at its meeting on October 21, 2021. The board consists of representatives of professors, staff, students, and stakeholders and it makes all major decisions related to the City Campus. Get to know the composition of the university board

The project plan will be completed in December. In that phase, the Board will decide on approving the plan, on the application for a land use change and the start of an architectural competition. More detailed planning of the building and decisions on financing and construction would take place in 2022–2025.

It is also important to note that the details of the project plan are not final at this stage. The aim has been to present one possible solution to enable the board to assess the project's boundary conditions. Also, the different images presented will differ from the final building, the design of which is to be chosen in an architectural competition.

A project study is underway on Linnanmaa's space arrangements, which will consider the location of the activities remaining in Linnanmaa. The development of the Kontinkangas campus will also continue after the project planning for the City Campus is completed, next year.

A separate planning reservation report is connected to Raksila's supermarket lot and it will be delivered to the City of Oulu by 31 December 2021 for the start of the land use change. Preliminary information on the planning reservation report was received in April.

The City Campus would be ready for use in 2028.

The picture shows an exemplary illustration of the University of Oulu's City Campus from Tehtaankatu direction. An architectural competition will be organized for the site. Picture: Line Architects

The contact people of the project planning of the city campus

Representatives of faculties:

Tuomo Glumoff, Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine

Jari Sivonen, Faculty of Humanities

Laura Kvist, Faculty of Science

Virpi Glumoff, Faculty of Medicine

Sauli Sohlo, Oulu Business School

Heikki Kontturi, Faculty of Education

Jukka Lahti, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering

Tuomas Stoor, Faculty of Technology

Minna Abrahamsson-Sipponen, Library

The students' representatives:

Olli Joki, Student Union

Kauko Keskisärkkä, Student Union