Fusion Eclipse
Student accommodation. Just not as you know it.
Accommodation developer Fusion Students is disrupting the sector. Its user-focused brand supports not just student’s academic needs, but their physical and social wellbeing too.
Eclipse, Cardiff, provides a generous mix of social and study space, with study booths, gyms, cinemas and quirky bookable dining rooms. It takes useful features from other sectors too, in particular co-working areas from the offices sector and gathering spaces inspired by the hospitality industry.
Bedrooms are provided in a mixture of accommodation, from cluster flats to studios and twodios. With a focus on communal living, the front door to the 6 bed cluster flat brings you straight into the lounge as opposed to the more traditional, and less welcoming, communal corridor.
Knowing that young people from around the world have varied wellbeing needs, we worked with Fusion to research how the physical environment mediates pastoral care, before applying the resulting lessons into the design concept. The layout is configured to build community, acknowledge cultural or personal differences, and encourages students to express themselves in fun ways.
Free photo booths allow students to pin polaroids onto corkboard walls to personalize their space and create a sense of ownership. Similarly, the buildings feature ‘wishing trees’, encouraging students to write down their hopes and ambitions onto its ‘leaf’ tags, all in the name of building community spirit.
One asked for additional rowing machines in the gym. Fusion provided them.
Fusion Students’ brand is all about entertainment. While acknowledging that wild partying is not everyone’s cup of tea, their concept nonetheless builds in socialising as the key to a smooth integration to university life. Large party rooms double up as onsite bars replete with dance floors and karaoke machines. Students have free access to a professional sound system and are encouraged to become their own resident DJs.
Large gym facilities and fitness suites cater for Les Mills exercise and yoga classes and are proving extremely popular. There are also outdoor lawn spaces, including the UK’s first bookable indoor/outdoor dining room that spills out into a private courtyard, capable of staging large barbeques or picnics. It also features an outdoor ping pong table.
Fusion Students innovation is self-evident. Their purpose-built student accommodation goes far beyond simply providing students with a clean, safe, high-quality place to live. It uses the in-depth cross-sectoral experience and the expertise of Stride Treglown’s interior design team, combined with tailored market research and trend analysis, to deliver spaces that nurture students’ physical, mental and social wellbeing.
The concept is easily transposed to different locations and will transform the purpose-built student accommodation sector.
“Stride Treglown responded with creativity and style to our incredibly ambitious brief to deliver a scheme, which we believe has set a new benchmark for UK student accommodation. We are pleased to have worked so closely together, and are delighted with the response from our student residents and industry peers alike.”
Adam Horwood, Head of Marketing, Fusion Students