Student housing: an integrated approach to student accommodation design

Student housing is, first and foremost, a form of social infrastructure. It is the first place where people who leave home to study must rebuild a sense of belonging. This paper brings together two complementary perspectives: on the one hand, a technical and regulatory overview of the Italian student housing market, including its structural shortcomings and the proposals currently under discussion; on the other, an analysis of how the design of these spaces directly affects the mental health of their residents. Taken together, these two perspectives lead to a fundamental conclusion: increasing the number of available beds is not enough unless those places are also accessible and designed to support residents’ well-being.

From “dormitory” to purpose-built student accommodation

Italy’s first student residences were established in the 1930s within the framework of the Opera Universitaria and, during the Fascist regime, its affiliated organisations. After the Second World War, they were reorganised according to a welfare-based model and managed by regional authorities responsible for the right to education, with the aim of providing accommodation for academically deserving students who lacked sufficient financial resources. Although founded on a commendable principle, this approach never developed into a fully structured system. The first national regulatory framework was introduced only in 2000 through Law 338, which established minimum standards and mechanisms for state co-financing. In almost seventy years, the model had never undergone substantial reform.

Meanwhile, student mobility increased, expectations changed, and university became an experience extending far beyond the classroom. While the Italian public system, burdened by decades of underinvestment, struggled to keep pace, a radically different model was becoming established across Europe: purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA). These are buildings designed from the outset for a specific type of resident, with integrated services, study rooms, communal areas, laundry facilities and connectivity forming an essential part of the overall offer rather than being treated as optional additions. They are also professionally managed, according to standards comparable to those of the hospitality sector. In the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, PBSA is now a mature asset class. Italy is still lagging behind, but the direction of change is the right one.

Student housing: the scale of a structural gap

According to the Confindustria Assoimmobiliare Observatory, around 1.9 million people are enrolled at Italian universities. Of these, almost 700,000—more than 40%—study away from home. The structured supply of student accommodation meets only 5% of this demand: out of every one hundred students living away from home, only five are able to find a place in a dedicated residence. The comparison with the rest of Europe is stark: the United Kingdom provides accommodation for 27–30% of students living away from home, France for 16%, and Germany for more than 13%.

Italy currently has approximately 85,000 student beds, a figure expected to rise to 100,000 by 2027. Cumulative investment in the sector has already reached €4 billion. These are encouraging figures, but they remain structurally insufficient in relation to the true scale of the problem.

The issue of affordability

An uncomfortable but necessary question remains: how much does it really cost to study away from home in Italy, and is private PBSA affordable for an average-income family? The average cost of a single room on the private rental market is currently around €613 per month, with annual increases exceeding 7–10% in recent years. In Milan, rents reach approximately €660 per month, in Bologna more than €600, and in Florence around €560. Since 2021, the increases have been substantial: +73% in Bologna, +70% in Trento and +59% in Florence. The financial burden falls almost entirely on families: 38% of students living away from home rely fully on their parents to cover accommodation costs, while only 10% are able to pay for them through a scholarship.

PBSA provides levels of quality and security that the informal rental market cannot guarantee, but its prices reveal a more complex reality. Monthly rents can reach €1,740 in Milan, €1,350 in Florence, €1,300 in Rome and approximately €1,200 in Bologna. Even facilities operating under agreements linked to Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which are expected to offer rates at least 15% below market levels, often remain beyond the reach of middle-income households. The result is an increasingly segmented market: on one side, public residences with an extremely limited number of places allocated according to ISEE income and financial criteria; on the other, private PBSA developments that claim to target the “middle segment” but in practice exclude a significant proportion of it. Between the two lies a fragmented private rental market with no guaranteed standards of quality.

The cost of delivering a bed in a PBSA facility in a major Italian city currently ranges from €80,000 to €120,000—twice as much as ten years ago—and this is inevitably reflected in rental rates. The aim should not be to demonise private capital, but to understand how mixed models can be structured to expand supply while maintaining effective safeguards for affordability.

The proposals under institutional consideration

The Confindustria Assoimmobiliare Observatory has clearly identified the barriers currently hindering private investment in the sector and has outlined four main proposals.

1. Planning and authorisation procedures. In Italy, student housing does not have an independent planning classification: depending on the municipality, it may be classified either as residential or as tourist accommodation. This ambiguity leads to lengthy and uncertain approval processes, lasting 18–24 months compared with 6–12 months in other European countries. The proposal is therefore to introduce a single procedure with clearly defined timeframes.
2. Making the NRRP framework permanent. The measures introduced by Ministerial Decree 481/2024—including simplified changes of use, building permits with defined approval times and additional development rights for the regeneration of existing properties—currently apply only to projects eligible for public funding. The proposal is to make these measures permanent by incorporating them into the Consolidated Building Act.
3. Incentives under Law 338/2000. For operators committing to regulated rents, the proposed measures include extending public contributions to investment costs, reducing urbanisation charges, introducing incentives for energy-efficiency improvements and providing tax relief. This is the most significant proposal, as it directly addresses the tension between affordability and investment profitability.
4. Conversion of facilities. Once the designated-use restriction expires, operators should be allowed to convert properties to alternative uses and to introduce mixed uses during the operational phase, thereby reducing exposure to student demand alone.

Beyond square metres: space as a driver of well-being

Many student housing briefs appear to be based on an implicit assumption: that residential space is essentially a container—a place to sleep, wash and store belongings—and that added value comes primarily from services such as a gym, a study room or fast Wi-Fi. The evidence points to a different reality.

The Student Living Monitor 2024, the largest European study on well-being in student accommodation, surveyed almost 11,000 students across 16 countries. It measures psychological well-being through the Mental Health Index-5 (MHI-5), a scale from 0 to 100 on which 60 represents the threshold for good mental health. The average score recorded was 57.8, just below that threshold. Students forced to commute for more than an hour because of housing costs recorded a score of only 40.6—a figure that should prompt serious reflection among anyone involved in the design and management of student residences.

According to the Student Living Monitor, 40% of respondents report that their mental health is being affected by loneliness, which emerges as the single negative factor with the greatest impact identified in the study. Cumulative data from 2023 to 2025 show an MHI-5 score of 49.9 among those experiencing loneliness, compared with 63.7 among those who are not—a gap of 13.8 points on a scale where 60 represents the threshold for good mental health.

The report also points to a possible solution: students with access to well-designed communal spaces, organised events and outdoor areas record MHI-5 scores above 60. However, an important distinction must be made: the mere presence of these spaces is not enough; they must also be activated and managed effectively. Meaningful friendships, after all, rarely begin at organised events. They tend to develop in transitional and everyday spaces—the corridor, the shared kitchen or the laundry area—through unplanned encounters and conversations that begin simply because someone else is already there. The availability of shared communal spaces increases the frequency of these informal encounters, which in turn facilitates interpersonal connections and improves well-being. Students who feel well integrated into their residence are also less likely to drop out of university.

The Student Living Monitor provides another useful insight for designers by highlighting a clear distinction between the effects of different facilities on well-being. Premium facilities—such as swimming pools, cinemas, restaurants and cafés—increase the likelihood that residents will recommend their accommodation, but their absence does not have a significant negative impact. Essential facilities—including study spaces, gyms, communal areas, outdoor spaces and laundry rooms—tell a different story: when they are missing, both well-being and the likelihood of recommending the accommodation are significantly reduced.

It follows that design quality should not be measured by distinctive features, but by the performance of the fundamentals. A student residence with a swimming pool but without effective communal spaces is prioritising the wrong elements. Designers therefore have clear evidence with which to guide layout decisions and support discussions with clients.

Well-being as a design parameter

Who is the real user of student accommodation? A student living away from home is not simply looking for somewhere to sleep. They bring with them a range of expectations, anxieties and practical needs: studying in an environment that supports concentration, socialising without giving up privacy, feeling safe, and managing daily routines that may not necessarily align with those of the people living nearby. This is a complex user, and the spaces they inhabit must respond to that complexity.

Designing student accommodation well means making precise choices. It means not sacrificing the acoustic quality of private spaces in favour of maximum density: an additional bed is worth nothing if the person sleeping there is unable to study or rest. It means carefully balancing communal spaces, study rooms, informal areas and social spaces so that they can accommodate different uses and schedules without becoming either chaotic or deserted. It means paying close attention to natural light, thermal comfort and connections with the surrounding neighbourhood. It also means recognising that residents’ mental well-being is an integral part of the design equation. Loneliness, disorientation and the difficulty of building relationships in an unfamiliar environment are extremely common experiences among students living away from home, and spaces designed to facilitate interaction can make a tangible difference to everyday life.

Student accommodation is not a hotel characterised by rapid turnover. It is the first place where people must rebuild a sense of belonging after leaving home: a liminal space in the deepest sense of the term, which can be designed either to support that transition or to make it more difficult.

The responsibility of integrated design

The two perspectives explored in this paper—the infrastructural and the psychological—cannot be separated. Designing student accommodation that works for its residents, its operators and its investors is a far more complex exercise in synthesis than it may appear from the outside. It requires bringing together the vision of the institutional client, the needs of those who will manage the facility over the next twenty years, the regulatory and planning constraints of the specific context, and the real needs of young people who are often experiencing independent living for the first time.

Closing Italy’s infrastructure gap—moving from 5% coverage towards European standards—is necessary, but not sufficient. Coordination between public incentives, management models and design decisions is needed to provide not only more beds, but accommodation that is both affordable and well designed. This requires extensive research before the design process begins: understanding the market, the city and, above all, the user.

Armando Casella
Architect | Co-founder and CEO DVArea