The Socio-Spatial Production of Campus Publicness: Integrating Space Syntax, Spatial Affordances, and Student-Led Practices

Universities operate beyond their conventional roles of education and research, functioning as socio-spatial environments where public life is continuously produced through everyday interactions. While previous studies have examined either campus spatial configuration or student practices separately, less attention has been paid to how spatial configuration, spatial affordances, and student-led practices interact to produce campus publicness. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the socio-spatial production of publicness across the North and South campuses of Bahçeşehir University (BAU), an inner-city university located in the dense urban context of Beşiktaş, Istanbul. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach that integrates Space Syntax analysis (Angular Segment Analysis and Visibility Graph Analysis), affordance-based observations of in-between spaces, and semi-structured interviews with student clubs. This analytical framework enables an examination of how spatial configuration creates opportunities for co-presence, how architectural affordances support sustained interaction, and how students appropriate these spatial potentials through artistic co-production and collective practices. The findings demonstrate that campus publicness cannot be explained by spatial configuration alone. Rather than occupying either the most integrated circulation routes or the most segregated areas, student clubs consistently appropriate moderately integrated and visually accessible in-between spaces that balance accessibility with opportunities for prolonged interaction. These spaces—including lounges, appropriated classrooms, gardens, and informal thresholds—support repeated rehearsals, performances, and collaborative activities that transform latent spatial potential into sustained forms of collective public life. The study further shows that, while digital communication reinforces these practices, they remain primarily rooted in face-to-face interaction within the campus environment. By conceptualizing this process as specialized campus publicness, the study extends discussions on campus publicness by demonstrating that public life emerges through the dynamic interaction of spatial configuration, architectural affordances, and repeated student practices. It further contributes to urbanism and campus design research by illustrating how inner-city university campuses function as distinctive socio-spatial environments for collective cultural production.