UvA reduces office space: the Faculty of Law gives up a floor, services leave Hogehilweg in 2031
According to the draft budget, several departments will need to take steps to help realise the UvA’s aim of using office space more efficiently. The Faculty of Law will give up one floor at REC-A, while FNWI will increase the number of flexible workspaces. In addition, the UvA will not renew the expiring lease for the services hub on Hogehilweg.
Several UvA faculties and departments will need to take steps to implement the planned reduction in office space. This is clear from the draft budget published by the university this week. Earlier, Vice-President Richard Goldstein explained in Folia that the university needs to shrink: in terms of office space alone, the UvA plans to give up 18,000 square metres. This ambition is also set out in the Accommodation plan presented by the UvA in May.
For the Faculty of Law (FdR), this means leaving the tenth floor of the A building on the Roeterseiland Campus (REC). According to the draft budget, vacating the floor in 2027 will be “a first step”. Several research centres and departments of the Faculty of Law are currently still located on the top floor of REC-A.
Other ways
Other faculties will have to comply with the new space standards in different ways. According to the university’s plans, the Faculty of Humanities (FGw) will leave the already increasingly empty P.C. Hoofthuis in 2031 and move to the then-renovated Oudemanhuispoort and BG5. The Faculty of Science (FNWI) will make greater use of flexible workspaces, for which “an efficient office concept” will be implemented in the main building at ASP 904.
The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) and the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG) must also draw up plans for further reducing the space they use. The UvA does acknowledge that the ambition to downsize on the Roeterseiland Campus is “more complex” than elsewhere.
Services and staff
Changes are also planned for support and administrative staff. It was previously announced that Maagdenhuis staff will move to REC in 2027, with a large proportion moving into the J/K building. The UvA’s planning now also shows that the university will leave the Hogehilweg in Amsterdam-Zuidoost in 2031. The expiring lease will not be renewed, as stipulated in the latest amendments to the Accommodation Plan.
This means that the staff working there – part of the joint support services (ICTS, Facility Services and the Administrative Centre) of the UvA and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) – will have to work elsewhere. It is not yet clear where that will be. Some of them may also move into the J/K building. Another possibility is that they could be accommodated at an HvA location. The termination of the lease does not appear to be related to the HvA’s cuts to support staff positions, which higher-education publication HvanA reported on earlier.
