An exploratory study of space use, interaction and students? and academics? subjectiveperceptions of interaction and vitality in the four campus sites of the PontificiaUniversidad Católica de Chile (PUC), in Santiago de Chile is presented. The fourcampuses, which differ substantially in their architecture, size and the programmaticnature of the disciplines they house, were modelled as spatial configurations usingspace syntax methods. Observations of patterns of space use and movement werecarried out and a questionnaire survey of staff and students was used to elicit perceptualand reported communication network strengths for both academic staff andstudents. One might expect that, given the twin roles of a university institution in thegeneration of new knowledge and induction of alumni into a ?professional? socialsolidarity, the roles of global and local integration would tend to compete. Globalsegregation in combination with local integration can construct the conditions forstudents to appropriate the open space and generate a powerful local identity at thelevel of the academic unit. However, global integration appears to play an importantrole in making those local solidarities accessible to one another and therefore in thegeneration of new knowledge and solidarities. The data at hand, though exploratoryin nature, suggest that the dynamic is more complex: local identity of the disciplineappears to be a necessary component in the construction of interdisciplinary ?weak?networks at the scale of the institution as a whole
