Purpose built student accommodation isn’t just good for students, it’s good for communities

Student accommodation is often a young person’s first experience of a home away from their immediate family and familiar surroundings. This is reason enough to ensure it’s designed in a way that provides residents with both their own private space but also encourages and promotes wider engagement and socialising with their peers.

Purpose-built student accommodation (PSBA) can also reduce any potential friction with local communities, bringing renewed vigour and vitality to an area and delivering on many placemaking objectives, something that’s also important to universities and colleges.

Benchmarks of placemaking

One of the big accusations levelled at the student population is that it reduces the amount of rental accommodation available to the wider population. PBSA helps to remedy this situation by freeing up traditional properties. This can reduce the burden on mainstream housing and amplify the positive aspects students can bring – the cultural and economic regeneration of our urban landscapes that young people drive, particularly in inner cities and town centres.

To realise this potential fully, PBSA projects must be benchmarks of placemaking and deliver sympathetic development. They must complement existing architecture, using local materials where possible. They must reflect an area’s culture heritage and backstory, drawing in the local community and enabling students to integrate positively. Both groups can then coexist, successfully sharing spaces. Meanwhile, students will feel more at home, which can lead them to put down roots and live and work in the cities where they have studied, generating real long-term social and economic value and benefits.

Community hub

To achieve this, we need to take the time and effort to fully understand the location and talk to people on the ground at the start of every project – from the community, council and education establishments. We need to listen closely to what they have to say, discover what’s important to them and gain an understanding of the area socially, culturally, historically and economically. Every area’s uniqueness should be reflected in its PBSA developments. This may sound an obvious approach, but it can very easily be overlooked if the narrative and ambition of a project is not clearly set out from the start.

It’s not just about providing facilities for residents but also creating a space and a hub for the community. In addition to well-appointed rooms, study and social areas, such as communal spaces, gyms, cinema rooms and roof terraces, are key to getting students to mix informally. But it’s equally important to add value to the local area and economy through incorporating resources such as great open spaces and well-designed and flexible studios and office facilities for local artists, creatives and businesses alike. Some of the best examples of student housing also deliver community shops, cafés, meeting halls, creches and educational facilities. This is the essence of true placemaking and student housing has been a leader in driving this agenda, turning brownfield and transitional zones into new vibrant neighbourhoods.

Blurring lines

The outdoor space around the building is just as important as the interior. It should be well designed and welcoming through carefully crafted and enhanced landscaping. Using local artists to create works relating to the local heritage of the location, from sculptures to poems etched into the building’s external fabric, helps to establish identity while also supporting the arts community of the area and improving the local environment.

These themes can also be extended through the interior, giving residents a vital sense of place, helping them feel part of a city, instead of an outsider. This helps to blur the lines between students and the local community, maximising integration and creating developments that are bespoke and add a unique value to modern urban life.