Living and Learning: A New Identity
for Student Housing in City Suburbs
Oscar E. Bellini, Matteo Gambaro and Martino Mocchi
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.
Keywords Student housing · Urban regeneration · Social capital · Human capital ·
Multicultural processes
O. E. Bellini (B) · M. Gambaro
Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering—ABC Department, Politecnico di
Milano, Milan, Italy
e-mail: oscar.bellini@polimi.it
M. Mocchi
Milan, Italy
© The Author(s) 2020
S. Della Torre et al. (eds.), Regeneration of the Built Environment
from a Circular Economy Perspective, Research for Development,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33256-3_11
99
for Student Housing in City Suburbs
Oscar E. Bellini, Matteo Gambaro and Martino Mocchi
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.
Keywords Student housing · Urban regeneration · Social capital · Human capital ·
Multicultural processes
O. E. Bellini (B) · M. Gambaro
Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering—ABC Department, Politecnico di
Milano, Milan, Italy
e-mail: oscar.bellini@polimi.it
M. Mocchi
Milan, Italy
© The Author(s) 2020
S. Della Torre et al. (eds.), Regeneration of the Built Environment
from a Circular Economy Perspective, Research for Development,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33256-3_11
99