What is a European campus? How can it be conceived and designed as an open, social, sustainable, and collaborative space? More than sixty students and faculty members from the nine STARS EU partner universities explored these questions during a week-long international design workshop at Hochschule Bremen (HSB). The Ou[te]r Campus BIP (Blended Intensive Programme) was initiated and organized from May 4 to 8 as part of the “Place & Society” master’s module at the School of Architecture Bremen under the direction of Professor Maria Clarke, Janina Ebner, and lecturer Aintzane Del Rio Pereda. The Bremen teaching format had already addressed the European campus last summer semester. This year, the project team is specifically developing it into a European teaching format, bringing together different disciplines from all nine STARS EU partner universities.
“The goal of our current semester is to build on the momentum generated by last year’s real-world laboratory, develop those ideas further, and translate them into long-term, institutionally anchored structures—toward a co-creation campus that transcends disciplinary and geographical boundaries,” says Janina Ebner.
“Bringing together over sixty interdisciplinary participants—students, doctoral candidates, and faculty members—from the nine partner institutions was no small feat,” says Professor Maria Clarke. “During the workshop, however, a clear willingness emerged to collaborate, network, and work together to understand the complex question ‘What is a European campus?’ and find answers to it.” This demonstrates the enormous potential inherent in this alliance. “Not once was it questioned whether STARS EU is the future—rather, the focus was on the question: How can we further strengthen STARS EU?” The groups are now continuing to work in depth on the six concepts developed—an exciting mix of physical locations and digital possibilities.
The new teaching format was launched in the summer of 2025 with the “Interspace” collaboration project at HSB. The question at the time was: How can we create shared, connecting campus spaces within the European STARS EU Alliance? An international group of students from the School of Architecture at HSB and the Integrated Design program at the University of the Arts Bremen (HfK) had developed ideas for this in their collaborative project. One example is an Intercultural STARS EU Pavilion serving as a meeting place, which now stands at the Spanish partner university, the University of La Laguna, in Tenerife. In total, a six-member jury consisting of members from the HSB, HfK Bremen, and the partner universities in Tenerife (Spain) and Krakow (Poland) awarded prizes to three projects.
Read the press release about the “Interspace” collaboration project.
The Ou[te]r Campus BIP was funded by Stars EU and Erasmus grants.
The results of the Ou[te]r Campus teaching and transfer project will be on display from July 1 to July 9, 2026, in an exhibition at the Transferlabor (formerly the AB Galerie) at Hochschule Bremen. The exhibition opening will take place on June 30, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. All are welcome!
Prof. Maria Petra Clarke
Building Construction
+49 421 5905 2767
Email
Janina Ebner
STARS EU | Co-Creation Campus
+49 421 5905-2381
Email
