Sustainable Campus in a Historical Town: The “Ca’ Foscari University of Venice” Case Study

Abstract

Venice is a place of strong contrasts and contradictions. Depending on the point of view, Venice can be described as an example of sustainability, in terms of the presence of an urban tissue co-evolved with surrounding lagoon, or of unsustainable exploitation, e.g. hosting millions of tourists per year in spite of an extremely fragile tissue. Within this context, what is the University role, if any, and what does it mean sustainable Campus? Being located in a very ancient town, the Campus is necessarily spread across the town, with almost 30 venues, often hosted in historical buildings, some old of centuries. Since 2010, Ca’ Foscari assumed Sustainability as one of the pillar of its developing strategy for the future, directly assuming it in the Statute. In that year, indeed, the Sustainable Ca’ Foscari project was inaugurated, aiming to include sustainability as a guiding principle for all University activities. The sustainability program is based on two different mainstreams, considering both the top-down and the bottom-up approaches. On one side, the work on structures and infrastructures, on the other, the involvement of both people living the Campus and constituting the University community, and those living outside it, that is Venetian society. In this paper, a description of the main activities and their possible effects on the city is reported.