Creating a world so plausible that people begin looking for it on Google Maps has a subtly brilliant quality. In what seems like record time, Amazon Prime Video’s Off Campus has succeeded in doing just that. Even self-assured streaming executives probably didn’t fully predict the show’s success. It is a romantic drama about elite college hockey players and the complex lives surrounding them. Millions of viewers are now inquiring about the precise location of Briar University.
In a nutshell, it doesn’t exist. The fictional private college Briar University is situated in an equally made-up town in Massachusetts. It was written by author Elle Kennedy for her best-selling Off-Campus book series, which serves as the basis for the television program. Kennedy created the school from the ground up, characterizing it as a private Ivy League research institution without seeming to take inspiration from any actual university. The fictional Briar has all the weight of a real location, so that’s an intriguing creative decision. It features named dorm rooms, a performing arts center, a hockey arena, and a fraternity house. It feels lived-in, which is probably why people are always asking where it is.
The story of the actual filming is quite different and, to be honest, more fascinating. With the University of British Columbia acting as a physical stand-in for Briar’s campus, production on Off Campus mostly took place in Vancouver, British Columbia. Television production frequently uses UBC as a backdrop for American stories that require a certain level of architectural legitimacy without the expense or practicality of filming in the northeastern United States. With its stone buildings, clock towers, and open quads, the campus has its own take on that historic academic grandeur, and the camera work effectively creates the impression of being in Massachusetts.
Certain places are dispersed throughout the city in unexpected ways. The Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre, a real facility that was rebuilt in 2008 and can accommodate about 5,000 people, is the hockey arena where the Briar Hawks play their home games. The Irving K. Barber Learning Center, which is anchored by the iconic Ladner Clock Tower, is actually the structure used to symbolize Adams Hall on campus.
The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, a concert hall that has subtly appeared in more productions than most people realize, including the second season of The Last of Us, is used to represent the Kaufman Center, where Hannah, the show’s main character, attends music lessons.
Perhaps the most telling detail is the fraternity house. Sigma Phi Delta, the engineering fraternity at UBC, currently resides in this 1915 craftsman-style wood-frame home in the West Point Grey neighbourhood of Vancouver. That seems appropriate—a real fraternity house acting as a stand-in for a made-up one, carrying its own real history of college life while feigning to be somewhere else.
It’s difficult to ignore how well the program blurs the lines between the real and the imagined. Filming for Malone’s Diner and Bar, the type of pub that serves as the focal point of every college drama, takes place at The Heatley in the Strathcona neighborhood of Vancouver. The former Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, which has been used in so many productions that it is now practically its own character, served as the location for some of the open campus scenes.
Kennedy never seemed interested in making Briar University feel generic, which is why it functions as a fictional setting. After an eight-episode premiere, the show has been renewed for a second season. It centers on certain emotional textures, such as the unique tension of competitive athletes and the challenge of figuring yourself out while surrounded by equally lost people. All of that is contained within the university. It’s possible that the location never really mattered, whether it was in British Columbia, Massachusetts, or somewhere else entirely. The fact that it feels true is what counts.
