Utrecht has ca. 380,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth city in the Netherlands, including 40,000 students. Located 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.

Over the following decades, some of those buildings were altered, others extended, and some new structures have been erected as well. The former Uithof university campus now calls itself Utrecht Science Park.