CARTUJA
The city of Sevilla has three main campus areas: San Bernardo in the city centre, Palmera in the south and the modern and relatively new campus on the island of La Cartuja, to the west of the historical city centre across the Guadalquivir river where our project is located.
Seville is the capital city of the Andalusia region and is Spain’s fourth largest city in terms of number of students with a total student population of over 80,000 students. LIFE identified a distinctive gap between supply and demand in the northern campus “Isla de la Cartuja”. We estimate there are over 17,000 students in the close vicinity to our project with a low existing supply below 500 beds.
Besides a handful of old small sized student residences in the city centre, nearly all competitors in recent years acquired plots in the southern Palmera campus area. Although the area holds the biggest student population with over 50.000 students, the neighbourhood is perceived as being consolidated with potential signs of over saturation in the market with a strong pipeline of over 4,000 new beds by 2022. Many international players such as Greystar, Youniq, Syllabus and Amro have or will have a residence near the Palmera Campus in the South.
ISLA DE LA CARTUJA – A REINVENTED OASIS OF KNOWLEDGE
Thanks to a keen governmental strategy, Seville was able, as one of the few, to successfully reconvert and integrate a World Expo exhibition site into a new dynamic urban area. After experiencing some difficulties in the 90s of last century, as of the early 2000s, Isla de La Cartuja reinvented itself, by attracting educational and private investments, from an abandoned place into a new oasis of knowledge. LIFE.es is proud to be part of this ongoing transition.
The Cartuja campus emerged as of 1993, through the reconversion of the Expo ’92 exposition site. Currently, over 8.000 students study on the Isla de la Cartuja spread over multiple faculties and educational institutions. In recent years, the Universidad de Sevilla – the main university in Seville – relocated multiple faculties to this area. Furthermore, the area is characterized as a technology hub in Seville through the presence of several business and small-scale private schools, start-up companies and research centres. Several business schools also joined the wave landing in this new area, such as IMF and EOI.
Thanks to further investments by public and private investors, close to 12.000 students from the Universidad de Sevilla alone, will be following daily courses on the Isla de la Cartuja before the start of the academic year of 2024-2025.
The site is within a 15-minute-walk to the historic city centre of Seville, notably the Alameda de Hercules trendy area. The bus takes you downtown in less than 10 minutes. The residence is neighbouring multiple faculties located within the Isla de la Cartuja, of which the Faculty of Communications (>2.500 students, 5-minutes-walk) and the ETSI (>4.500 students, 1-minute-walk) are the most important ones.
In addition, the area is known for the cities landmark Torre Sevilla, the highest skyscraper of the city and the new shopping mall El Centro Comercial Torre Sevilla.
INNOVATIVE LIVING CONCEPT
Due to multiple years of experience in reinventing innovative concepts and redesigning established concepts, LIFE.es is proud to announce the future of educational living in Sevilla. Steering away from the standards in professional real estate, we firmly decided to increase the free height in living units in order to create more light and maximize space. After thorough research, LIFE.es decided to implement its well-known bed-at-height principal. Doing this, in accordance with local regulations, we were able to maximize our number of units as well as meeting all the needs from our future users.
In this day and age, bearing in mind the COVID-19 psychological and health consequences, everybody wants to be part of a community. LIFE.es developed a building with well-designed practical units along with multiple common areas, each designed with great attention to detail and design.
OPTIMIZING SPACE & CREATING COMMUNITY
The private units have a ceiling height of 3.70m in a framework of raw concrete and are completely furbished with a private bathroom and kitchen.
But there is more…much more!
The building is designed with multiple common areas, adding over 1.200sqm to the residence, which can be used in a flexible way, fitting the needs and demands of our future residents both indoor and outdoor.
- A communal kitchen and cafeteria, dining room and coffee bar, a takeaway service to bring coffee, breakfast or lunch into the classroom
- A grocery service
- A grand café with a sunny terrace
- A fully equipped fitness, available 24/7, and the opportunity to join yoga sessions
- A communal, enclosed patio designed as an oasis of peace of mind where mind-challenging lectures, group sessions and community events can be experienced
- An oversized multimedia room
- A laundry room
- A restaurant, operated by the same company as our student cafeteria, to ensure high quality meals, and more importantly a connection with the LIFE beyond college.
Our operator will arrange frequent events, meetings and networking sessions to increase the interaction between our student residents and the stakeholders (researchers, business schools, start-ups, tech companies) in the area.
SUSTAINABILITY ON A SOCIETAL LEVEL
The concept of Cartuja keeps in mind reducing our ecological footprint. In addition to the solar panels, balanced ventilation system and Smart Building technology that makes this building such a fine example of sustainable construction, Cartuja’s sharing economy also offers a comprehensive answer to our production/consumption society. In great contrast with the increasing segregation in our society, Cartuja is a project were inclusion is the standard. Our building will obtain the BREEAM Very Good certificate making it a pioneer in Spanish student accommodation.
We are proud to call this project “the living revolution”, taking the quality of life to the next level.
