Utrecht has ca. 340,000 inhab­i­tants, mak­ing it the fourth city in the Nether­lands, includ­ing 30,000 stu­dents.  Locat­ed in the east of the city, the uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus used to con­sist of detached build­ings, float­ing in green mead­ows. In the 1990s the uni­ver­si­ty decid­ed to den­si­fy the sprawl accord­ing to a mas­ter­plan by OMA. A clus­ter of unusu­al fac­ul­ty build­ings was cre­at­ed, with the Edu­ca­to­ri­um by OMA and the Uni­ver­si­ty Library by Wiel Arets as highlights.

From Uithof, a short coach ride takes you to the Water­line Muse­um, a more recent high­light of Dutch archi­tec­ture. Focussing on the his­to­ry of a mil­i­tary defense line, which enabled the Dutch to inun­date large areas of their coun­try in case of war, the build­ing is con­struct­ed inside an old fort. The shape of the con­crete struc­ture fol­lows the topo­graph­ic lines on site.