Traditional residence halls are anything but traditional today. Colleges and universities are getting away from building dormitories with long, uninterrupted hallways filled with door after door and one lounge per floor. They are calling on architects and designers to create spaces that enhance student living and build a life experience around the academic and social nature of college.

“Colleges and universities are being very intentional about aligning student housing design with their vision and mission,” says Jane Wright, president and CEO of Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company (HEWV). “That is the piece that shapes the direction, more than what students are asking for.”

By tying student housing to their missions and purposes, colleges and universities are further strengthening the bond that students have with the institutions.

“Student housing, historically, was an outlying building for universities,” says David Harper, principal of HADP Architecture. “It was a building that was important to facilitate the mission of the university, but only in a limited way. Over the last 10 to 15 years, housing is now recognized as a core mission of the institution. The socialization process and total experience for students on-campus is viewed as greatly supported by the function of student housing.”

Study Time

One theme concurrent among a number of designs is that universities and colleges want students to enjoy where they live. That means they want them to spend time there, and they are adding in the amenities mostly seen off-campus. As part of this, many colleges and universities hold focus groups when they are planning new housing or renovations of older housing units.

“Students know what they want,” says Brian O’Connor, principal of Cube3 Studio. “Off-campus, they can get it, for the most part. Now, administrators want more students to live on-campus. They realize that students are not going to live on-campus unless they mandate it, or they give them what they want.”

What students want is a place where they can feel part of a community, yet also retain some level of privacy. Many new on-campus student housing projects deliver this demand.

At Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Design Collective is creating a new, 1,500-bed project designed to be a campus landmark. Instead of having a small common area on every floor, the building will have larger common spaces spread throughout the building. For instance, a dramatic two-story lounge with an all-glass façade located on the top two floors encourages students to student or meet in this iconic space, which can be seen from the street. A movie theater on the lower levels encourages students to remain on-campus for entertainment. The project will also have a dining hall and retail component. Similarly, at Montclair State University in New Jersey, Design Collective worked with Capstone to design The Heights, a 2,000-bed project opening this fall. The project contains two buildings that each have four wings. The wings share common amenities, creating an environment where students have to walk past common areas to get to the elevator cores. This forces social interaction instead of an environment where students go directly to their suites or private rooms.

“One of the challenges in student housing is to break down the barriers among students so they are communicating more on the floors,” says John Baxter, education section leader at EYP.

At the University of Akron in Ohio, EYP has designed the newly opened Honors Complex with many amenities to help students interact. One implemented idea is a whitewall corner, an area designated for meetings or where they can just leave messages for each other. In an age where digital communication is the norm, this area became extremely popular.

Many of EYP’s latest on-campus designs break down floors into smaller communities of 20 to 24 students. Likewise, architects at Solomon Cordwell Buenz are trying to incorporate large gathering spaces and comfort and convenience. With laptops, tablets and smartphones, students are able to take their work with them all over campus. In some designs, SCB has been discussing the idea of creating an “information commons” or “learning commons” space into student housing.

“This is almost a multipurpose room that is open and highly technology oriented with comfortable seats, chairs and workstations,” says Jim Curtain, principal with Solomon Cordwell Buenz. “Amenities like group study tables are included to create an environment where people feel very comfortable and where they will stay for an extended period of time.”

At Shippensburg State University in Pennsylvania, Cube3 Studio is designing more than 2,000 beds of housing that replaces older housing stock.

“These new halls make a better connection with the broader campus by creating a much more interactive first floor experience,” says O’Connor. The halls contain flexible classrooms, large living-learning spaces, health and wellness centers, and other amenities.

At Dean College in Massachusetts, a new Cube3-designed student housing project recently broke ground that has no more than four residential units grouped in the same area.

“Instead of a long, uninterrupted hallway, we have a fairly narrow section of hallway that is punctuated by larger areas that are used as common areas,” says O’Connor. “Those four units share some sense of identity or location with those common areas, rather than just being long halls. That strategy of creating identity at the individual room or suite level works as well as interspersing study nooks and vending areas.”

“We really push to get rid of long corridors that have a lot of doors on them,” says EYP’s Baxter. “We want to break that up with study niches, lounges and lots of glass for a lot of daylight.”

Breaking up the space, while adding design elements that force community creates an interactive sense of the project, architects say. It leads to an enhanced college experience, without sacrificing the student’s need for privacy.

“A lot of student housing spaces are trying to focus on a variety of educational and entertainment uses,” says Curtin. “A student can still go to their residence hall and feel very private, but they are also part of a larger village or neighborhood that has a dynamic linkage to university life and education.”

What is feeding a lot of the changes is student input into the design. Cube3 and HEWV have both undertaken or participated in student focus groups on many campuses as part of their commission from the universities. HEWV has worked with many universities, including Rhodes College in Memphis; Wake Forest and Davidson in North Carolina; and Rollins College in Florida, where the driving force for new student housing is based heavily on student input. At Rhodes College, for example, upperclassmen had significant input into factors like privacy, shared living space and communal space.

“We are seeing campuses worry much less about [student housing] not feeling like a traditional building and more about building a strong community, no matter where the student is in their growth path at the university,” says Wright.

At the University of Michigan, HEWV is renovating student housing with a lot of student input. When the firm surveyed thousands of UM students, it found that spaces that fostered community were more important than private spaces like individual bathrooms.

“The spaces that supported their experiences as a student are the spaces that won out,” says Wright. “They played a higher priority than the type of rooms that the student lived in.”

Creating Specific Communities

At some colleges and universities, the need for group living is in demand. This is especially so with honors colleges, specialty schools and Greek life within larger campuses.

Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas  + Company recently completed two residential colleges and renovation of two residential colleges at Rice University in Texas. According to Wright, the program was driven by what the university was trying to accomplish strategically. Namely, it was trying to grow and did not want to alter its culture or the path of success that it had with its residential college program. To accomplish the project, HEWV studied the existing residential college programs’ size and fit within the campus to help position and contribute to the success of the new buildings. Similarly, at Baylor University, HEWV is in the process of designing its third community; two have involved residential colleges.

“Baylor’s second imperative in its strategic plan for 2012 is to create a truly residential community,” says Wright. “The goal of the projects is to reinvigorate the campus with vibrant and successful student communities.”

At the same time, Baylor hasn’t moved from a traditional housing stock, says Wright.

“What the students wanted were more opportunities to become a close and meaningful student community that had strong peer relationships and that provided them with what they needed to be successful as students — a more collaborative, less isolated way of life.”

Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., called on EYP to create a Jesuit community residence that incorporates all aspects of Jesuit life — work, prayer, worship and recreation — at the university. EYP is also seeing a trend where colleges and universities are asking faculty to go beyond the classroom and live in residence halls. In most cases, these are in special units that are more private or sectioned from general student housing.

At Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, Kirksey is designing a new housing project specifically for freshmen that will open this fall. The new hall will contain a “Freshman Success Center” that has services aimed at easing the transition to college and reducing the freshman drop out rate, such as helping build community and study groups. Every floor also has a large lounge where students can gather.

“When students are removed from other students as freshmen, they are less likely to get out and meet new people,” says Wes Good, managing principal and collegiate team leader at Kirksey. “This is an example of how a building can facilitate that by providing services and amenities that create an open and easy way to access your community.”

Another of Kirksey’s designs takes purpose-built student housing to a new level. At the University of Central Arkansas, a new student housing facility the firm is designing will have luxury suites designed on the fifth floor. The suites have an overlook into the university’s football stadium.

“On game days, those luxury suites will be full of local businesspeople and alumni there to watch the game,” says Good. “The whole facility is themed around the sports experience.

Quality Experience

In addition to building enjoyable spaces, colleges and universities are now looking at quality. While in some cases that means going green, in others it means reclaiming old buildings and spaces and using materials that will last a long time.

“The bar has been significantly elevated in terms of expectation of quality,” says HADP’s Harper. “Not only are universities looking for buildings that [have a life expectancy beyond] 20 or 30 years, but that will have the same life expectancy as most of the major buildings on campus, which is generally 100 years or more.”

At the University of Houston, HADP designed Cougar Village, a 1,200-bed project that had to meet a tight schedule for its delivery. Despite that, Harper says, “The project created a building that the university looks at with pride, in terms of the image of the building and the quality of the materials.”

At the University of Maryland, Design Collective, together with Capstone and Whiting-Turner, has applied today’s principles to the renovation of a group of historic student housing buildings known as Washington Quad. The design called for transforming a surface parking lot into a quadrangle with barbecue pits, shaded study areas and a volleyball court. An underground cistern collects all water runoff from the buildings’ roofs. The water is discharged to keep the landscaping in the quad green.

“So often, the bottom line is only concerned with new construction, and this [project involved] the space between the buildings,” says Luis Bernardo, principal with Design Collective.

At the project the firm is designing at Rutgers, outdoor courtyards will also be utilized. A library and computer lab are on the same elevation as an outdoor terrace.

“On a nice day, professors could hold class on the built-in steps,” says Bernardo. “There will also be Wi-Fi in the outdoor courtyards.”

One of Kirksey’s designs takes a “less is more” approach. The firm designed a student housing project with concrete floors, which allows students to decorate the floors using their own carpets and rugs. It used some units as models to show students what the rooms could look like with a few inexpensive items.

“The design allowed students to personalize the room to meet their needs,” says Good.

Developer Carmel Partners is developing a pioneering mixed-use private development under a ground lease on the campus of the University of California-Davis. The project contains 23 single-family homes, as well a 1,980-bed student housing project that will be built in four mixed-use buildings. The buildings will each have ground floor retail with student housing above. There are also three-story walk-up apartments for student living.

The project is unique in that it will produce the annual energy load of the community using on-site renewable sources. That makes it — according to its developer — the largest zero net energy community in the United States. The community itself is designed to be a minimal user of energy, paying extra attention to the solar orientation, natural light and ventilation orientation, and water usage concerns. In addition to creating a property that was zero net energy, the developers also wanted to use as many materials that were sustainable or made from recyclable content as possible.

“We are attracting students who are interested in green properties, but more so the idea of being part of something that is pioneering and groundbreaking,” says Nolan Zail, principal with Carmel Partners. “It is defining what the future can be. It is not just the green interest, but the aspirational nature of the project.”

With occupancy set to begin for the first phase this fall, Carmel Partners has seen good rents and velocity beyond its expectations. About 800 of the nearly 2,000 beds (about 390 units) will come online this fall, with an additional 190 following in fall 2012. Carmel hopes to complete the final phase for opening in fall 2013.

In addition to creating an environmentally friendly development, Carmel has created one that has amenities new to the UC-Davis market. Each bedroom in the apartment units will have its own bathroom, which Zail says is unusual for the market.

“We spent a lot of time and effort focusing on what the quality of the experience would be,” says Zail.

While the project is private, Carmel Partners worked closely with UC-Davis and its development partner, Urban Villages. The architect for the student apartment is Oakland, California-based MVE Institutional, while San Diego-based Studio E Architects is designing the mixed-use buildings.

While creating an atmosphere where academics is supported by community involvement, colleges and universities also haven’t forgotten one of the major factors that student housing helps: attraction of students.

“Both parents and students now look at student housing as one of the most important reasons why they select institutions,” says HADP’s Harper.

— Randall Shearin