BBS expands the Campus of Villa Guastavillani
16 September 2020Bologna Business School established to train a new generation of business leaders, continues its development.
The new BBS campus that will be built opposite Villa Guastavillani was presented today by the Dean of BBS, Max Bergami, by the architect Mario Cucinella, by the Rector of the University of Bologna, Francesco Ubertini and by Romano Prodi, President of the Collegio di Indirizzo of the Bologna-based business school.
The project, located in an area of the hills surrounding Bologna, designed by Mario Cucinella Architects, aims to enhance a place with relevant historical significance and to create new facilities for the business school. The new design will enable the rethinking of the way in which users relate to academic environments, creating moments of sociality and interaction as fundamental prerequisites for students to learn.
“The growth of BBS led us to the need of identifying new spaces to be added to our iconic headquarters – Max Bergami, Dean of Bologna Business School explained – and the availability of a surface with a few buildings opposite Villa Guastavillani made us decide to grow here, right where we were born. Our Bologna campus has become an eco-system, increasingly attractive for international competence and knowledge. It is in contexts such as BBS that we need to play our cards to restart the economy and development of society, within a framework of international connections that represent a spur for the growth of the entire country. In close collaboration with the University of Bologna and the other Members of the Fondazione BBS, we are committed to provide unique learning opportunities, based on multidisciplinarity, on the integration with companies and the institutions of the Region Emilia-Romagna and, of course, on internationalization. Here, together with our partners, we create new skills for the use of new technologies and to lead the transition towards economic and social sustainability”.
“Bologna Business School – Francesco Ubertini, Rector of the University of Bologna remarked – has grown considerably in the past few years. It has become a point of reference for management training, both locally and internationally. I believe the building of this new campus is a very important step to consolidate this growth”.
The new Campus will be built on the ridge of the hill, renovating, and recovering some buildings already present on the site, the entire surface being 3300 smq [35,521 sqft]. A ‘’light’’ intervention to simplify the existing spaces and architectures, so to ‘silently join’ the context of the Bologna hills, through a volume that constantly seeks a dialogue with nature and the surrounding landscape. A new roof will be the characterizing and unifying element of the work, and at the same time, it will be the passive regulator of comfort inside the premises, combining at best architectural, functional, and sustainable aspects. “The project of the New Campus of Bologna Business School – Mario Cucinella, Architect and Founder of Mario Cucinella Architects commented – was devised as a place where nature, history and architecture communicate together, to give life to spaces for learning, in tune with students’ needs. Young people are increasingly conscious about environmental sustainability and therefore about the future: our job consists in creating architectures that give students an educational sense. Just like Loris Malaguzzi taught us, talking of architecture as the third educator.”
Romano Prodi, President of the Collegio di Indirizzo of BBS, concluded: “Next to the great effort that is being made to train technicians, suited to the challenge of our times, in the same way we need to make sure we train the managers and executives who will lead our companies in the future: Bologna Business School is an institution capable of fulfilling this great and necessary project. The campus we are presenting today is the symbol of this important task that Bologna has taken on.”
