University campuses hold significant importance as centers of knowledge and symbols of human social and civilizational progress. Their continuous expansion brings about rapid transformations in urban spaces, societal phenomena, and economic advancements (Cai Yongjie et al. 2004). The concept of university campuses can be traced back to ancient Greece, where street teaching, known as "street," served as the foundation of European universities (Rui and Nong 2011). Over time, these educational institutions evolved from enclosed "colleges" in the Middle Ages, with square courtyards, to more open and interconnected campuses in the nineteenth century. Embracing academic freedom, higher education integrated with secular society, offering increased opportunities for interaction between teachers, students, and the broader community. In the post-1960s era, university campuses transformed into composite cities, showcasing the integrity, complexity, and growth potential of their buildings (Dong 2020).

Foreign research has extensively explored the relationship between university campuses and urban towns, focusing on campus planning characteristics, spatial forms, historical development, and human interactions during campus development. Joseph Louis Sert, in his book "Urban Practice," emphasized that campus design is integral to overall urban design, with close interaction between the campus and the city, involving human flow, material flow, information flow, and energy flow. For instance, the planning of Pennsylvania University exemplifies effective interaction between campus and city boundaries, contributing to the activation and revitalization of central urban areas. Additionally, numerous foreign papers delve into exploring the possibilities of symbiosis between schools and cities from social, capital, and operational perspectives. Japanese scholars propose that official cooperation between industry and academia can stimulate interactions at the school-city boundaries and foster integrated industry-university research.

Ancient education in China dates back two thousand years, and one significant example is the Imperial College, known as Tai Xue in Chinese (Zhang 2018). The layout of the campus, whether official or private, reflected different ideologies. Official campuses showcased centripetal occlusion, reflecting feudal centralization, while private campuses aimed for integration with nature through landscape cultivation. However, both types of campuses shared a common characteristic – a closed layout of academy architecture, resulting in a negative relationship between the campus and the city. A turning point in China's educational landscape occurred during the Revolution of 1911 when modern universities began to emerge. The campuses evolved in form and expanded in size. Even after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the influence of the Soviet Union persisted, with hard boundaries like walls and fences signifying the campus's independence within the city. In the twenty-first century, a new era unfolded for the relationship between campuses and cities, driven by the influx of multiple ideas (Shen and Li 2008). The concept of "city" campuses emerged, bridging the gap between the campus and the city space and breaking the traditional isolation of campus-city integration (Table 1).

Table 1 Domestic and foreign campus-urban relations and border space evolution and development (Self-drawn based on a literature review)
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Despite China's delayed start in university construction and its journey marked by twists and turns, the country has been unwavering in its commitment to constructing world-class universities since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The emphasis on higher education and university development has triggered a boom in Chinese university campus construction, which gained momentum in the second half of the twentieth century. However, as cities continued to expand, many old school districts in central urban areas faced challenges, such as outdated facilities and inadequate supporting infrastructure, necessitating reasonable updates to campus spaces. Currently, China's campus construction has shifted from incremental development to stock development. Research on campus space now concentrates on campus updating and school-city relations, with a growing recognition of the overall complexity involved in these updates.

From a disciplinary perspective, campus updating requires the involvement of various fields, including urban planning, architecture, education management, economics, geography, environmental science, political science, sociology, and psychology. In the architectural design domain, university campus updating should comprehensively consider factors such as the hierarchical design of campus space, the integration of campus texture with city texture, the preservation and innovation of campus culture, traffic system optimization, functional updates, opening up school-city boundaries, campus health and comfort, and innovative mechanisms for management and construction processes.

Looking at the evolution process from a spatial form perspective, several trends emerge. Firstly, campus space does not have a fixed, optimal state; instead, a gradual evolution from history to the present and into the future is essential for campuses. The diversified and dynamically balanced pattern reflects the essence of the campus spirit. Secondly, contemporary universities are increasingly integrating into cities and shedding their isolation to become organic components of the urban social environment (Fig. 1). Thirdly, in recent years, single-discipline vertical innovation breakthroughs have become more challenging, making cross-disciplinary innovation the mainstream approach for exploring disciplines. When updating campus functions, researchers should focus on establishing a composite ecosystem within and between disciplinary groups, providing spaces for interdisciplinary communication. This approach is a necessary trend for the existing campus updating construction.

Fig. 1
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Concept diagram of core teaching area, basic functional area, and campus-city symbiotic area (self-drawn)

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Modern campus construction and updating should strive to create an integrated system that harmoniously unites schools and cities while exploring new models for their joint growth (Jihuang and Ning 2008). Researchers must adopt multi-disciplinary cross-research methods, breaking down narrow disciplinary boundaries and comprehensively drawing on theories and research references from various related fields.