The UB, Nexo Residencias and GSA España, put the first stone of the largest university residence in the city

From left to right, Andrés Lezcano, the rector, Joan Elias, Christopher Holloway and Albert Blanch.
From left to right, Andrés Lezcano, the rector, Joan Elias, Christopher Holloway and Albert Blanch.
Institutional
(23/02/2018)

The University of Barcelona and the university residence group Nexo Residencias and GSA España put the first stone of the University Residence Aleu today. The residence, named after Dolors Aleu, the first graduate student in Medicine at the UB and in Spain, will be located at the Barcelona Knowledge Campus, the largest one of the UB. Its surface will cover more than 19,000 square meters and will offer more than 500 accommodation sites for local and international students. Also, it will have a restaurant service, gym, co-work places, study rooms, terraces, bike parks, and a program with a wide range of cultural and leisure activities.

From left to right, Andrés Lezcano, the rector, Joan Elias, Christopher Holloway and Albert Blanch.
From left to right, Andrés Lezcano, the rector, Joan Elias, Christopher Holloway and Albert Blanch.
Institutional
23/02/2018

The University of Barcelona and the university residence group Nexo Residencias and GSA España put the first stone of the University Residence Aleu today. The residence, named after Dolors Aleu, the first graduate student in Medicine at the UB and in Spain, will be located at the Barcelona Knowledge Campus, the largest one of the UB. Its surface will cover more than 19,000 square meters and will offer more than 500 accommodation sites for local and international students. Also, it will have a restaurant service, gym, co-work places, study rooms, terraces, bike parks, and a program with a wide range of cultural and leisure activities.

The rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Elias, and the general director of Nexo Residencias and Global Student Accommodation (GSA) in Spain, Christopher Holloway, carried out this symbolic act -putting the first stone of the building in presence of the architect and author of the project, Albert Blanch, and the director of the Infrastructure and General Services Area of the UB, Andreu Lezcano. 

The University Residence Aleu has been designed by Blanch + Conca Arquitectura (BCA) team and its construction is under the charge of the company VOPI4. The building is qualified with B regarding energy efficiency and energy conservation, it has a core building with twelve floors, where most of the rooms will be located, and another four-floor structure to hold the common spaces, both for study and leisure, such as the gym, game rooms, restaurant, cafeteria, laundry, a 400 square meter space for file archives at the UB and a 1,550 square meter room with a capacity of 440 people, exclusive for UB residents and students.


The university residence Aleu will cost around 22 million euros, which will fully assume the group Nexo Residencias and GSA España. The University of Barcelona will cede the use of the residence to this company for fifty years, establishing extension period of the five-year concession, up to a maximum of 25 years. The University of Barcelona will receive in exchange, an amount of around nine million euros and the 1,1% of the annual gross income from the beginning of this use, which is expected by September 2019.

The students to be accommodated in this building will have private rooms, which come with furniture, private bathroom and heating. In an international atmosphere, they will receive a personalized attention and will access the building with an online key. They will also have a weekly cleaning service and Internet connection in all the building. Also, students will have access to all social activities of the Pla Go, which offers sports and cultural activities as well as activities on the personal and professional development, solidarity and environment-friendly.

The rector, Joan Elias, started his speech highlighting the social impact of the University and how this new residence is an action that will contribute to strengthen the university community. After reminding the attendants that the UB has always been an urban university, he said the new residence will be an important improvement in an area of the campus that was born with some important gaps. “This is a first step which we expect to see growing”, he said. He ended his speech remembering the fact that the residence is named after Dolors Aleu, the first woman who graduated in Medicine in Spain and at the UB. He claimed Aleu is “the social commitment of our university over history, a commitment we want to keep in the future, and this residence is a good example of that”.

The University Residence Aleu joins the other four residences of the Nexo Residencias in Madrid. “We are glad with this project -says Christopher Holloway-, because it shows our trust with the student sector in Catalonia, and is particularly interesting for its educational quality and its appeal for local and international students. It encourages us to continue forward with a strong commitment to keep growing at a regional and a global scale”. For Holloway, the aim of the new residence is to provide students and residents with the best experience and he wished this act to be the first stone of a path to a better world, inspired on the values that are reflected in the name and career of Dolors Aleu”.

The director of the Infrastructure and General Services Area of the UB, Andrés Lezcano, highlighted that the new building has to improve accommodation and “create more life and activities apart from the academic ones, hoping it helps driving the transformation of this area of the city”. In this sense, he remembered the actions that were carried out in this area of the campus, like the solar atrium at the faculties of Physics and Chemistry, the space at the door of Finca Güell, a work by Antoni Gaudí, or the future geological garden in the street Menéndez Pelayo.


The architect of the project, Albert Blanch, commented on the strategic space of the new residence, next to the faculties of Physics and Chemistry, and near the future Espai Barça. He mentioned the two-volume projection of this work so that the nearby faculties are not deprived from having good sights and the fact that “it looks for light and is in line with the idea of austerity, simplicity and timelessness”.


The University of Barcelona is the largest and multidisciplinary in Catalonia, holding leading positions in international rankings in Spain and the biggest one in the city of Barcelona. With six campuses, sixteen faculties and eight affiliated centers, it gathers more than 63,000 students of bachelor, master, PhD and postgraduate degrees. More than 11,200 of these are international students, coming from up to 139 different countries. The UB also gathers around two thousand exchange students per year.

The group Nexo Residencias and GSA España consider Barcelona to be a key city for their development, due its cosmopolitan atmosphere, the quality of higher education and its promotion of culture and sustainability, values they fully share.