Student housing furniture: what Italian rules actually require

In short. A student residence in Italy is a fire-regulated activity, but it is not a hotel, and the hotel technical rule does not name it. Two opposite and equally expensive mistakes follow: copying a hotel specification, or writing nothing at all. Here is what actually applies, which furniture needs a reaction-to-fire class, and how to write a clause that holds at handover.

Is a student residence a regulated activity?

Yes, and by name. Annex I of Presidential Decree 151/2011 lists under activity 66 "hotels, guest houses, motels, hotel villages, tourist-hotel residences, student residences, tourist villages, farm accommodation, youth hostels, alpine refuges, bed & breakfasts, dormitories, holiday homes, campsites". Student housing is not swept in by analogy: it is written there.

Which means that above a certain capacity the building is subject to fire-prevention control, and the furniture is not a furnishing question but part of the fire strategy.

So does the hotel technical rule apply?

No — and this is where most specifications go wrong.

The decree of 9 April 1994, the historic technical rule for hospitality buildings, lists in its scope hotels, motels, hotel villages, tourist villages, rooms-to-let businesses, holiday houses and flats, farm accommodation, youth hostels, tourist-hotel residences and alpine refuges. Student residences are not there. And it is that decree which contains Italy's most quoted requirement — "upholstered furniture and mattresses must be class 1 IM" — and contains it for hotels.

What does cover them is the Fire Prevention Code: vertical technical rule V.5, introduced by the decree of 9 August 2016, applies to "tourist and hotel accommodation activities and student residences, tourist lodgings, hostels, bed and breakfasts, dormitories and holiday homes".

The difference is not formal. The 1994 decree gives fixed requirements: one class for floors, one for curtains, 1 IM for upholstery. The Code works through performance levels: the class a material needs depends on the level the designer assigns to that compartment. The practical conclusion, and it belongs in the specification in exactly this shape: the reaction-to-fire class of furniture in a student residence is a design figure, not a catalogue figure. Whoever writes the specification has to get it from the fire engineer and state it, rather than copying "class 1 IM" from a hotel document.

That it often ends up at 1 IM is true. That it does so automatically is not.

Which furniture needs a reaction-to-fire class?

Less than people assume — worth knowing, because asking for certificates the rules do not require costs both time and money.

Measure S.1 of the Code has a table, S.1-5, which — as the fire service note of 2 September 2020, prot. 11297 confirms — sets out point by point the materials that must carry reaction-to-fire requirements. They are upholstered furniture (armchairs, sofas, mattresses, cushions, upholstered chairs), bedding (blankets, bedspreads), furniture fixed and not fixed to structural elements (chairs and non-upholstered seats), tensile-structure canopies, stage curtains, drapes and hangings, and scenery.

Read that list from inside a student bedroom and what is missing stands out at once: the wardrobe, the desk and the bed as a structure are not named. The point is still argued among fire engineers — the 2020 note arose precisely from a request to clarify whether the entry extends to bookcases, tall and low cupboards, desks and tables — which is exactly why the specification has to say what it requires rather than imply it.

The right line is not "fire retardant furniture". It is: for each furniture family, the class required, the test standard and what the test is run on, according to the performance levels assigned by the fire strategy. How that is written out material by material is in how to write a furniture specification clause for a hotel.

And what do the ministerial student-housing standards require?

Less than you would expect, and this is the second gap.

Annex C of ministerial decree 481/2024, the one titled "Standards", is precise about areas: net residential floor area "must be equal to or greater than 10.6 sqm per bed for a single room or 8.1 sqm per bed for a double room", with the single room at no less than 9.3 sqm and the double at no less than 13.6 sqm.

On furniture there is a single sentence: the residence "must meet, so far as possible, requirements of maximum maintainability, durability and replaceability of materials and components". There is no list of required furniture and no reference to product standards.

It is a sentence both right and unusable, because it describes an intention rather than a measure — the same fault as "fire retardant". Turning it into something verifiable is the specification writer's job, and it is done through the three words it contains.

Maintainability: write it by requiring that wearing parts be replaceable without dismantling the piece, and that hardware be commercially available. Durability: write it by citing the product standard and the use level, not an adjective. Replaceability: write it by fixing dimensions and drilling centres, so that in five years one piece can be remade identically without remaking the room.

Which use level, if the standards never name student housing?

Here it pays to be honest, because the field is full of convenient assertions. EN 15372, which governs non-domestic tables, sets three use levels and names the premises for each: light for hotel bedrooms, churches and libraries; general for hotels, cafeterias, restaurants, public halls, banks, bars and meeting rooms; severe for night clubs, transport stations, hospital public areas, casinos, care homes, sports changing rooms, prisons and barracks. Student residences appear in none of the three lists.

So the level has to be reasoned out, and the reasoning is simpler than it looks: what counts is intensity of use and how many different users pass over the same piece. A bedroom desk is used by one person at a time, for many hours a day, and changes user once an academic year: continuous use, but not promiscuous. A table in the shared study room or the breakfast area is used by dozens of people a day, and is far closer to a bar table. Two different levels coexist in the same building, exactly as in a hotel, and the specification has to name both.

For seating the standard is EN 16139 in its 2025 edition, covering adults up to 110 kg — but it does not cover outdoor seating, nor office work chairs: two exclusions that matter in a residence with a courtyard and study positions. Storage units and worktops follow EN 14749.

And for beds there is a change few specifications have caught up with: EN 1725 in its 2023 edition replaced the 1998 version and now covers beds for non-domestic, contract use as well, where before it dealt only with domestic furniture. In a building made of beds, citing the right edition is the difference between asking for a test designed for a home and one designed for this use.

Why the calendar weighs more here than anywhere else

Because the academic year does not move. A hotel opening two weeks late loses two weeks of revenue; a student residence that is not ready in September loses the year, or close to it.

For buildings financed under the Italian recovery plan there is also an administrative date that is not negotiable: beds under the 2026 call must be made available by 15 May 2027. Between signing the contract and that date sit the reaction-to-fire tests, which are run on the real composite rather than on materials, and which start again from the beginning if a covering changes once the project is running.

It is the same logic as hotel work, only tighter: compliant products, certified and delivered on schedule, mean a building that opens when it has to. Dates are counted backwards from handover, as we explain in when to order hotel furniture to open on time.

How we work

Brianform was founded in 1982 in Brianza and makes sofas, armchairs and bespoke furniture for hotels, residences and accommodation buildings, with wood, marble, metal and upholstery worked in-house. We use Class 1 IM certified leathers and fabrics where the project requires them, fire-retardant foam and CARB 2 wood.

Because our pieces are always bespoke, on contract work we normally use article 10 of the decree of 26 June 1984, which allows certification for limited production runs and specific uses; we also keep our own lists of combinations already certified, and where the project allows we start from those. One thing is better known beforehand than afterwards: certification under article 10 covers the commission it was requested for and is not reused on another. The comparison with the British system, which turns up often when the operator is foreign, is in Class 1 IM or Crib 5?.

On delivery: every piece carries its own label, its photograph and the reference from the schedule issued at design stage, and the documentation is handed over divided by product family. In a building with hundreds of identical pieces, that is the only thing which, five years later, still ties a certificate to the item standing in the room.

Our seating is in the sofas and armchairs collections; the choice of covering is in which leather to choose. The Contract page explains how we handle commissions. Brianform and Stoneform are two divisions of the same company, producing in-house and without intermediaries: one commission can cover the upholstery, the timber furniture and the stone tops of shared bathrooms and kitchens. Start from our contact page.

Frequently asked questions

Does a student residence have to comply with the decree of 9 April 1994?

Student residences do not appear in that decree's scope. They are regulated activities under Presidential Decree 151/2011, activity 66, and they fall under vertical technical rule V.5 of the Fire Prevention Code, introduced by the decree of 9 August 2016.

Does upholstered furniture in student housing have to be class 1 IM?

The class comes from the fire strategy, not from a catalogue: under the Code it depends on the performance levels assigned to the compartment. In practice it often lands on 1 IM, but the specification has to say so rather than assume it.

Do wardrobes and desks need a reaction-to-fire certificate?

They are not named in table S.1-5 of the Code, which the fire service note of 2 September 2020 describes as a point-by-point list. It remains an argued point among engineers: the specification must state explicitly what it requires.

What do the ministerial standards say about furniture?

Little: precise minimum areas (10.6 sqm per bed in a single room, 8.1 in a double) and a general requirement of "maximum maintainability, durability and replaceability of materials and components". The rest has to come from the specification.

Which use level should tables be specified to?

EN 15372 names student housing in none of its three levels. The level is reasoned from intensity of use: the bedroom desk and the shared study-room table do not belong on the same one.

How far ahead should furniture be ordered?

Further ahead than it seems, because reaction-to-fire tests are run on the finished composite and start again if a covering changes. With a fixed handover date — 15 May 2027 for the 2026 recovery-plan call — the calendar is counted backwards from it.

Talk to us The contract division

This page cites Presidential Decree 151/2011, Annex I, activity 66; the decree of 9 April 1994; the decree of 9 August 2016, vertical technical rule V.5 of the Fire Prevention Code; measure S.1, table S.1-5 of the Code and the fire service note of 2 September 2020, prot. 11297; ministerial decree 1252/2022 and ministerial decree 481/2024, Annex C; standards EN 15372, EN 16139:2025, EN 1725:2023 and EN 14749; article 10 of the decree of 26 June 1984. The requirements applying to any individual building remain the responsibility of the fire-safety designer. The figures of the 2026 recovery-plan call are those of the published notice.