2023-05-20 11:28:46
Even for a news item like the problem of student housing, the history of architecture offers its examples: the Baker House, the serpentine dormitory that Alvar Aalto designed for MIT, Massachusetts in the 1940s; the modernist Florey Building, designed by James Stirling for Queens College, Oxford; or the Peabody Terrace, the residential complex by Josep Luís Sert, 1964. The same in which Giancarlo De Carlo was in charge of the master plan of Urbino, the city for whose new university he will design the university campus from the following year.
And even today, designer examples are not lacking. They are collecting accolades, for example: King’s College Cambridge, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios has just completed 84 student and fellowship accommodation, the Stephen Taylor Court, low carbon with extensive greenbelt and common areas in a new community to the southwest of the city. And in Paris, the 15th arrondissement, the transformation of an office building into a student residence by NZI Architectes.
«I hope that this clamor will serve to rethink, also at the planning level, the possibility of creating accessible homes, starting from the costs, flexible homes, in terms of use and typologies, and sustainable homes. It is necessary questioning the new paradigms of living, to accommodate new social structures, new services, new design and construction methods». Andrea Boschetti of Metrogramma well before the issue of high rents for student homes (and others) entered the common discussion, is carrying out a study of the European scenario which will be published next September on the subject of what in Europe is called affordable house for theto IQD magazine. A theme that must be addressed both from a planning and a political point of view.
Against high rents in Milan, urban regeneration and development of abandoned areas can be a solution
by Jessica Muller
«Il The home theme is crucial because it intertwines fundamental issues such as the right to study, the duty of hospitality, land consumption. In Europe, some countries have understood this, introducing controlled rents, raising the tax burden for properties left uninhabited, but also experimenting with new residential solutions.
In Freiburg, for example, they have achieved a district for 5,000 inhabitants with only 100 parking spaces. Those who live there choose a home, but also a community and a model of life. And then there’s all the New European Bauhaus which has the specific objective of thinking about virtuous living spaces in line with the European Green Deal».
Dear renters, Bernini goes to the students: “More housing with public-private partnership”. University students: “But there are fewer new beds than those announced”
by Viola Giannoli
In Biumo Inferiore (Varese) Alfonso Femiaan international architecture firm based in Genoa, Milan and Paris, which has already dealt with the Marseille Docks, Le Spot at La Ciotat and, in Italy, the Rome headquarters of the BNL/BNP Paribas Group, the Frigoriferi Milanesi and The Corner in Milan, stay restoring the historic home Casa Frasconi to repurpose it as a student residencewhile the adjacent building will house both a student residence and private residences.
In Milan, Femia has transformed a 1950s building into a student residence. This is the San Giovanni Housing near the Bocconi University campus, near the Parco della Resistenza. Architectures intended to satisfy urban and social needs and transformations, urban regeneration projects resulting from an accurate socio-environmental analysis, designed to be flexible to the evolution of the social scenario. And yet, despite this desire to strengthen the concept of community, shared spaces, for students or for the elderly, the news records a growth in the off-site accommodation business which is occupying an increasingly large share of real estate investments.
Dear renters, the business of student residences with Pnrr funds. University students: “We need rules for private individuals”
by Viola Giannoli
«The risk of it becoming a trend and a business is real», continues Boschetti. «If you plan student accommodation with associated services, from gyms to shops, it is natural that prices will still rise. Architects can do a lot in the design of services but enriching the context, the city. Even experimenting with new typologies for the home is an end in itself if the context is missing.
As far as I’m concerned there can be no experimentation, no study of new models of living, without the action part of future residents. The involvement of cooperators as generators of social development is another fundamental asset. Only in this way can architecture become an enabling factor to favor new types of livingand the original function of the architect would be recovered, which is then to improve everyone’s life in a democratic way».
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