Living and learning: A new identity for student housing in city suburbs

Abstract

The role of student housing in academic formative paths is rapidly changing and increasing in importance. According to international trends, university residencies are shifting their function from mere dormitories for students to more open structures for urban territories and the local population and are starting to be considered as important opportunities for enhancing and revitalizing the peripheral and problematic contexts in which they often are located. The case of the Politecnico di Milano is emblematic, due to the large investments the university injected into this sector over recent years, leading to the opening of three new residencies in the suburbs of Milan. This chapter reports on the activities developed by the authors over the last few years, aiming at fostering a more direct relationship among academic knowledge, educational strategies, and urban contexts. This comes via the experimentation of new forms of didactic and research, which attach great importance for university residencies for their possibility to share services, facilities, knowledge among students and the local population. The research focuses on the consequences of this change not only in sociological terms, but also in architectural ones, considering the new implications for the morpho-techno-typological design of structures. The results aim at going beyond the rigid constraints of the current regulation, developing a more open approach to design, which could be a starting point for the advisable revision of the law 338/2000, which is now 20 years old.