Keywords
Space Syntax
Wi-Fi sensing
GIS-MCDA
Machine learning
Smart campus
Published : 2026-08-14
Abstract
Most university campuses still decide where to put public spaces the old way—by walking the site, asking a few people, and trusting experience. That works until the campus grows fast or the student body becomes more mixed. Then the gaps show up: underused plazas, overcrowded paths, places that look good on plan but feel empty in real life. Over the last ten years, researchers have started bringing together Space Syntax measures, Wi-Fi movement data, GIS multi-criteria tools, and machine learning weight adjustments. The combination looks promising on paper. In practice, the pieces rarely talk to each other. This review looks at what has been tried, where the methods still fall short—especially on international campuses—and what a more joined-up approach might look like.
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