Student rezidence

Authors’ Comment

The design theme proposed to build a dormitory for the accommodation of students on the land of an existing vocational school. The presence of the school building and a sports hall, together with the irregular shape of the land, limited and conditioned the way the new construction was located. The building offers a ground floor with related functions (study rooms, medical office, restaurant) and 9 floors with 80 accommodation rooms, oriented east-west for the best possible natural lighting. The main design objectives were student comfort and energy efficiency to achieve nZEB standards. Thus, ventilated facades, green terraces with automatic irrigation system, solar panels, ventilation system with fresh air supply with heat recovery, LED lighting fixtures, controlled access system for each floor and for each room were proposed.
All these systems are controlled in an integrated and centralized way through the BMS (building management system) through presence sensors that activate the thermal installations, ventilation installations and lighting according to the presence of students in each room, independently.
The volume is simple, compact, which, through successive retreats, dilutes its presence towards the upper floors. The modularity of the windows and fiber cement panels transforms the facade into a single generalized textured pattern, potentiated on the north and south facades by the facade lighting system.
Natural light has been integrated as an architectural element highlighting the facades, but also the way it penetrates the different interior spaces throughout the day.
Both from the design phase and during execution, special attention was paid to the vegetation elements present on the land. I am referring here to the fir curtain on the west side, which was protected from destruction during the construction site and which also generated the shape of the dining room terrace.