MAGNETIC ACCESS GATES FOR THE NEW STUDENT ACCOMMODATION

“Laude Living Bologna” is a new residence for university students, which opened in the autumn of 2022 in the capital city of the Emilia region. It is managed by the CRM Students group, through its Beyoo brand, which manages over 80 residences for university students throughout the world. In Italy, in addition to Bologna, it also provides accommodation in Florence and Turin. “Laude Living” is an example of the highest quality and most modern student accommodation available. These facilities have been widespread in Anglo-Saxon and other countries, for decades, while in Italy they are still almost unheard of.

Bologna is home to the oldest university in the West and attracts thousands of non-resident students from all over Italy and the world. A prestigious location therefore, where the owners have decided to invest in building a brand new facility in an area that is just a stone's throw from the historic centre and numerous faculties, well served by public transport and with numerous services within easy reach.

The student residence is 16 floors high and is characterised by modern, elegant and functional architecture. It consists of 513 individual studio flats, almost all of which have already been occupied since it was opened. The floor area of the lodgings, which consists entirely of studio apartments, ranges from 19 to 25 square metres. In addition to their own rooms with kitchen and bathroom, the students (80% of which are foreign and 20% Italian), can use the communal areas such as dining rooms, libraries, games rooms, cinemas, music rehearsal rooms, reading and study rooms and a gym. All utility costs are included while a paid laundry service is also available via an easy to use app (an environmentally friendly management choice to encourage sustainable consumption). A weekly room cleaning service is also included in the fee.

A student residence 4.0 therefore, which is also equipped with high-tech systems and appliances manufactured by world-leading companies. Living in Beyoo accommodation is not within everyone's budget but considering all the services provided, the cost is perhaps not too different from that of living in rooms in private apartments, which are becoming increasingly difficult to find in Bologna. It is also no coincidence that other university residences are already being planned in the city in order to meet the demand for student accommodation.

It is a different approach to student life from the one we are used to in our country. It is certainly more modern and very likely able to encourage a sense of community and belonging among students, as well as promoting a better quality of study and cultural exchanges among the hundreds of students from all over the world who spend their Erasmus period or even their entire degree course in Bologna.

One of MAGNETIC’s leading products fits in naturally to a context in which the aesthetics are characterised by a minimalist but warm and welcoming design, in which pastel colours are predominant, where the architectural lines are generally linear and the furnishings and materials have an elegant timeless simplicity. To access the various floors and communal areas, once they have crossed the reception area of “Laude Living Bologna”, resident students and their visitors have to pass through three motorised FlowMotion^® mWing access gates manufactured by Magnetic.

The students can access the accommodation facility through the three gates using the same personal badge that they use to access their rooms. One of the three gates is wider than the other two (90 cm compared to the standard 60 cm) to allow easy access for large items of luggage or people with disabilities.

The motorised mWing pedestrian gates, designed in collaboration with Pininfarina studio, feature a slender silhouette with soft and fluid lines. The use of the exclusive mDure^® material, a recyclable and highly resistant polymer that can be produced in a wide variety of colours, together with the choice of transparent glass for the swing leaves, gives users the impression of a mixture of compactness and lightness, which is also accentuated by the lighting elements on the edges of the frame and at the base of the structure.

But apart from the aesthetics, other characteristics of the mWing gates indicated in a rigorous evaluation grid, convinced and reassured the Customer and the Works Management of the quality of the solution: the high IP protection rating, combined with MCBF parameters equal to 10 million cycles and a considerably lower energy consumption compared to the competition.

Lastly, the automatic FlowMotion® pedestrian passages are very much at home in a young, international, dynamic and innovative environment like “Laude Living Bologna”.