A Typological Study of the Socio-Spatial Composition of New-Type Universities in China: A Case of SUSTech Campus

As pioneers in the reform of higher education in China, China’s new-type universities, often referred to as the fourth generation of universities, play a crucial role in driving the iteration of educational concepts and innovation in planning and design through their campus construction. As an emerging campus type, existing research largely focuses on planning and design schemes and the static form of campus space, lacking a systematic exploration of its historical dynamic evolution and core influencing factors. This study uses Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), which is a typical example of this new type of university, as a case study to analyze its spatial evolution characteristics, core driving factors, and spatial shaping mechanisms, considering the interactions among multiple stakeholders from the perspective of dynamic campus spatial development. It comprehensively utilizes literature and archive analysis, drawing and image comparison, and field research to systematically trace the entire lifecycle of SUSTech’s campus planning and construction. By combining cognitive maps and questionnaire surveys, it can explore the spatial imagery characteristics of the completed campus, analyze the key influencing factors of its spatial evolution, and propose critical thinking on related issues. It finds that SUSTech’s campus spatial form gradually took shape through a game of radical and eclectic ideas, exhibiting a dual characteristic of innovative pursuit and practical adaptation in terms of site attitude, innovative educational concepts, and planning and design concepts. Spatial evolution is the result of the combined effects of the demands of multiple stakeholders, changes in educational concepts, and the urban development context. This also reflects problems such as an imperfect consultation mechanism, inconsistent planning concepts, and insufficient functional adaptability of architectural images, which hinder the effective implementation of strategies for optimizing campus spaces in the context of China’s higher education transformation. This study reveals the inherent laws governing the dynamic evolution of new university campus spaces during the historical stage of China’s higher education transformation, providing theoretical and practical support for the planning, construction, and operational optimization of similar campuses.