VMDO Student Housing Design by VMDO Architects

Student Housing Design

Contents VMDO Architects – Student Housing Design

Fostering Vibrant Communities

Research + Academic Partnerships

Developing Community

A Place to Relax, a Place to Interact A Place to Socialize A Place to Study, Discuss + Learn A Place to be Nourished A Place to Pursue Interests

10 14 17 20 23

Designing for Student Life

An Enduring Student Living Environment Student Rooms Fostering a Residential + Honors College Experience Supporting a Sense of Community Integrating + Revealing Sustainable Design Strategies Enhancing Quality of Life

26 29 33 34 37 39

Engaging the Campus

Planning for Student Housing Siting with Sensitivity Responding to an Established Architecture

42 45 46

Renovation Breathing New Life into Existing Buildings

49 50

VMDO Architects Student Housing Design

Featured Projects

V M D O Archi t e ct s

VMDO Architects Student Housing Design Student success is rooted in social connection, academic engagement, and physical well-being. Since our very first project commission, VMDO Architects has been creating residence halls designed to promote all three. A safe and healthy indoor environment – with natural light, connections to the outdoors, acoustical privacy, and opportunities for both boisterous movement and calm quiet – promote the kind of well-being that is a foundation of student success. Meanwhile, inviting, memorable gathering spaces located along students’ natural paths of travel encourage students to interact, join in a variety of activities, and forge strong social connections. And carefully-crafted learning spaces blend social and academic experiences – encouraging singular and group study, providing the flexibility and technology to explore ideas together, and even generating opportunities to connect with professors as appropriate. At VMDO, we work with our clients to establish a clear and compelling vision that captures goals that are specific to each new project. Then we find the design strategies – from campus connections to living units – that will help each unique population of students succeed. With consistent input from our clients, we discover how design strategies will support the social, academic, and living experiences that are right for their student housing environments.

V M D O A rchi te cts

Fostering Vibrant Student Communities Student housing is an important determinant in recruiting and retaining students. While potential college applicants will evaluate an institution’s academic quality, location, and cost to determine where they apply, their final selection is often made on the basis of perceived quality of life. Residential life plays a large role in that determination. A vibrant residence hall community can, literally, bring home a culture of learning to the lives of its students. By meeting student housing needs while supporting their social and academic development, a thriving residential community helps its students prepare for the complex world they will face beyond the university experience. Housing programs at colleges and universities across the country are recognizing the potential for residence hall design to support these critical goals. With student populations that are increasingly diverse – creating student housing that encourages a sense of community among a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences is especially important. Meeting students at their current needs – from a need to connect with a wide variety of new peers as a first-year, to the need to find a comfortable, more independent living environment as a non-traditional student – means that students can find the support and sense of community they need to thrive.

V M D O Archi t e ct s

Research + Academic Partnerships Student success is supported by equal parts social and academic engagement. Infusing opportunities for both academic exploration and social connection allows residence halls to blend the two in ways that support meaningful learning and contribute to the institution’s broader mission. The nature of this combination can take a variety of forms including: •

Living Learning Communities (LLCs) Poised to Spark Institutional Change. Grounded in a literature review with Dr. Karen Inkelas, VMDO is developing a new vision for living-learning communities at the University of Florida. This vision positions LLCs as a catalyst for crossdisciplinary collaboration on the University of Florida campus – an institution that currently suffers from siloed academic departments. By theming the LLCs on challenges – like Global Health – and planning for a variety of flexible and highly-specialized academic spaces, the housing master plan creates a framework where cross-disciplinary exploration can flourish.

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A Campus Home for Creativity and Innovation. VMDO created an extensive program and design vision for the first living-learning community on the Virginia Tech campus to come out of the “Beyond Boundaries” strategic plan. The Creativity and Innovation District (CID) residence hall includes a generous 30,000 square feet of public space devoted to artistic-, performance-, and research-based experiences that will support interdisciplinary experimentation and meaningful connections within the CID, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, and beyond.

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An Oasis of Health and Wellness. Home to four residential colleges, the Centennial Village at the University of Miami integrates a commitment to learning into a generous array of social and academic spaces. As the first residence hall to be registered for WELL v.2. certification, the project design focuses on evidence-based strategies for supporting student health and wellness that have been shown to reduce anxiety and stress. This attention to the quality of the spaces is designed to support a sense of community, belonging, respite, and comfort, allowing students to make the most their social and academic experiences.

01 Developing Community A Place to Relax, a Place to Interact A Place to Socialize A Place to Study, Discuss + Learn A Place to be Nourished A Place to Pursue Interests

Deve lop i ng Com m u n it y

A Place to Relax, a Place to Interact

An open, welcoming gathering space provides a place to make new friends, a place to share experiences, a place to develop a sense of belonging. Well-designed common spaces at each scale of the building – from the building’s main lounge to a suite’s intimate living room – foster opportunities for students to relax and interact.

“ When presented with the opportunity to re-envision our first-year housing, we took an in-depth look at the first-year experience of our resident students. Centennial Village will provide students with a blend of individual, group, and community-wide spaces to aide in their transition into University life.”

J im S ma r t E xe c u ti ve D i re c to r o f H o u s i ng and Re s i dent ia l L ife U ni ve rs i t y o f M ia mi

Deve lop i ng Com m u n it y

A Place to Socialize

Partnered with the activities of a dynamic Residential Life program, the gathering spaces of a residence hall can support students in their social development through their college years by drawing students into common activities. Every space in a residence hall should be considered in terms of its contribution to community development. Even service spaces such as the laundry room and hall bathroom can be thoughtfully located near gathering places in the building to encourage student interaction.

D ev elo p i n g Commu n i ty

A Place to Study, Discuss + Learn

Colleges and universities do their best to prepare students for the demands of the modern workplace, where collaborative work, on-the-job training, and experiential learning are commonplace. Today’s college students are frequently required to engage in group projects and collaborative work as part of their regular course of study. However, many campuses suffer from a lack of collaborative learning space to support this group work. Spaces within the residence hall can fill this need, supporting the academic development of its students and fostering a culture of learning. This allows students to experience learning as an on-going engagement – a long-term conversation – that extends beyond the walls of the classroom and into their daily lives.

Deve lop i ng Com m u n it y

A Place to be Nourished

Sharing food is a nurturing experience. Whether it’s a bag of popcorn shared during a late night of studying or a full Sunday brunch with a group of hall mates, sharing food creates a special kind of bond that can cement the relationships begun in a residence hall. Particular attention to the design of its dining spaces will locate and outfit these spaces to feed a sense of community as well as student appetites.

D ev elo p i n g Commu n i ty

A Place to Pursue Interests

Activities in a residence hall can extend far beyond socializing, studying, and sleeping. With the right support space, residence halls can encourage students to pursue and develop burgeoning interests. A music practice room can become the place where a young musician explores a new passion by working out techniques and compositions as inspiration strikes. A maker space can allow a creative student to explore ideas with tools on-hand, quickly mocking up an idea and sharing with friends for feedback and insight. A fitness room can be the place where a non-athlete finally finds inspiration to develop a healthy exercise routine. Selected for the culture and interests of each student population, specially programmed spaces can help students pursue a rich array of interests right in their own residence hall.

02 Designing for Student Life An Enduring Student Living Environment Student Rooms Integrating + Revealing Sustainable Design Strategies Supporting a Sense of Community Fostering a Residential + Honors College Experience

Desi gni ng for St ud e nt L ife

An Enduring Student Living Environment

Durability, thermal control, acoustic separation, and reliable security are key factors in creating a comfortable and enduring living environment. Design features such as waterproofing details in shower stalls, ventilation strategies of shared bathrooms, and durable sound-proof wall assemblies contribute to the building’s function and maintenance.

D es i gn i n g F o r Stu de n t L i fe

Desi gni ng For St ud e nt L ife

D es i gn i n g fo r Stu de n t L i fe

Student Rooms

The student unit has the largest influence on the size and associated cost of a building, so its impact is felt on the budget sheet. The type and mix of student rooms also is critically important to provide students with living arrangements attuned to their needs. When organized around a diverse palette of student amenities, the right living unit can enrich the residential experience. The style of room and the quantity of student amenities are linked with the student’s class year and unique needs. For example, first-year students are often housed in the smaller, traditionalstyle rooms where they are nudged into generous public community spaces to meet and connect with other students. Meanwhile, upper division and graduate students, who have already established social networks on campus, often have larger individual living units and thereby use these spaces – rather than common areas – for connections and socializing. The right blend of public space and living units is fundamental to creating the community living experience appropriate for an institution’s students, culture and housing goals.

“ Our vision was to create an environment in which staff, students, and faculty could work and live in close proximity, while still providing boundaries and separation for privacy and independence. The architects achieved this by creating separate zones and then creating visual and conceptual linkages between them. Much of the success of this approach lies in the careful balancing of transparency and privacy in the design of sightlines and in their choice of materials.”

W i lli am L as s e r E xe c ut ive Dire c t or, Ca lh o u n H o no rs C o lle g e C le m s o n U ni ve rs i ty

SECT I ONAL T I T LE

D es i gn i n g F o r Stu de n t L i fe

Fostering a Residential + Honors College Experience

In recent years, colleges and universities have been creating intentional living-learning communities. Housing students with a common academic interest or set of classes together has encouraged students to blend their living and learning experiences. Taken to the next level, a residential or honors college brings professors and staff into closer contact with students, giving more ample opportunity to connect with and learn from one another – in academic and social environments alike. The design of these environments is critical to the success of these programs. Creating a memorable, powerful, and flexible gathering space generates a sense of identity among community members while allowing the group to gather in a variety of ways for a variety of activities. Developing an attractive faculty apartment with ample social space, access to outdoor space, and a private entrance allows faculty and their families to live with the right balance of contact with and privacy from the larger student community. And creating a hub of classroom and office space can generate opportunities for students to learn and connect with staff on-site, while giving them the autonomy they need to develop their own community networks.

Desi gni ng for St ud e nt L ife

Supporting a Sense of Community

Special places in a residence hall can highlight a common identity among residents. Environmental graphics can powerfully articulate a common history, celebrate a shared culture or tradition, or identify unique ties among residents. Equal parts art and education, well-designed environmental graphics remind students of their connections – among one another and to the larger community – while adding color and interest to a residence hall environment.

D es i gn i n g F o r Stu de n t L i fe

SECT I ONAL T I T LE

D es i gn i n g F o r Stu de n t L i fe

Integrating and Revealing Sustainable Design Strategies CONSERVATION + SAVINGS Because of their high energy and water use, residence halls can see long-term savings through sustainable design initiatives. Features such as ground source heat pumps, solar water heaters, light sensors, and mechanical efficiencies can save energy and money over the long-term. Shower drain heat recovery is especially effective given the large amount of water used in the building type. Similarly, low flow fixtures, dual flush toilets, waterless urinals, motion-sensing faucets, and rainwater collection can bring savings through water conservation. DURABILITY A residence hall is inherently exposed to a high volume of traffic and use. Careful attention to the durability and cleanability of the materials and finishes of a residence hall goes a long way towards minimizing the maintenance needed over the life of the building. INDOOR AIR QUALITY Equally important is the potential to improve indoor air quality for students who will spend a large percentage of their time inside the walls of the residence hall. Attention to the content of paints and finishes, the quality of air filters, and the availability of natural light can improve students’ wellness, quality of life, and academic performance. EDUCATION + DISPLAY Increasingly, college and university students are concerned about the human impact on the natural environment. Pursuing and displaying sustainable design efforts can improve building performance and educate concerned students about a college or university’s efforts towards responsible building practices. Building displays can explain and celebrate efforts addressing the fundamental concerns of sustainable building design.

D es i gn i n g fo r Stu de n t L i fe

Supporting Student Wellness

Major health risk factors for today’s students include social isolation and high levels of anxiety, depression and stress. Evidence-based design strategies for supporting student performance (such as through enhanced thermal comfort and air quality, circadian lighting, and views to the outside) have also been shown to reduce anxiety and stress, and can be further augmented by architecture’s role in creating a sense of home. Home can mean different things to different people: for VMDO, home means fostering a sense of community, belonging, respite, and comfort. Our current work at the University of Miami establishes student housing as a place of respite through physical and visual connections to nature and through the incorporation of natural materials and colors. The large complex is deliberately divided into smaller neighborhoods connected by a range of communal spaces that foster a sense of belonging at the floor, building, and campus levels. Integration with active pedestrian landscape brings the outdoors in and provides opportunities for movement and biophilic connection.

03 Engaging the Campus Planning for Student Housing Siting with Sensitivity Responding to an Established Architecture

Engagi ng t he Cam p u s

Planning for Student Housing

Thoughtful planning develops a vision for how a portfolio of residence halls can serve specific student populations across a campus. By articulating the bed count, unit type, public spaces, capital improvements, and landscape connections needed for each residence hall – both existing and new – a housing plan will anticipate the long-term needs of a campus housing program while building on a vision for an institution’s housing program as a whole. Grounded in sound financial planning and broad student and administrative input, high-quality planning both creates a design vision and solves critical problems so that it can be implemented with ease. A living document, a housing plan will clarify what qualities and aspirations will be important to develop in each residence hall as a campus continues to evolve.

En ga gi n g t he Campu s

Siting with Sensitivity

A new residence hall can make a palpable contribution to campus place-making. A new residence hall sited with sensitivity engages the larger campus context while also developing moments for more intimate residential-scale experiences. An attention to landscape spaces, to connections to adjacent campus ways, and to the intersection of the built and landscape form ensures that a residence hall forms a seamless connection with its surroundings. In the planning stages, this means attending to the realities of landscape, creating memorable outdoor environments while artfully resolving issues like topography, circulation, vehicular access, and utility connection. Deeper into design, this means refining memorable outdoor spaces.

Engagi ng t he Cam p u s

Responding to an Established Architecture

Every campus is unique. And every college or university building project is an exercise in campus design. To effectively enhance a campus, new construction should be carefully placed and detailed to respond to its surroundings. Buildings that are grounded in a nuanced understanding of these existing conditions create a comfortable sense of community with their neighbors. Attention to existing patterns ensures that the massing, materials, detailing, proportions, and roof lines of new construction will resonate with the texture of the existing campus. Similarly, an attention to the landscape ensures that any new construction contributes functional outdoor spaces to and fluid circulation within the campus community. Such artful attention imbues a new building with a seamless connection to its surroundings: physically, visually, and programmatically tying the new construction with its neighbors.

04 Renovation

Breathing New Life into Existing Buildings

Renovat i on

Breathing New Life into Existing Buildings

A thorough renovation can breathe new life into existing facilities while preserving the essential character of a building. New spaces carved into an existing building can fundamentally transform the programs available to students. Widening a narrow corridor into a welcoming lounge invites students to mingle and feel at home. Expanded program space enriches a residential community with gatherings, discussions, and events previously not possible. Meanwhile, care in re-design and renovation celebrates the craftsmanship and durability unique to past construction techniques. Responding to and preserving older residence halls can respect the defining qualities of the building and the campus, while moving residence life forward in fresh and innovative ways.

For the Arts Learning Community, the performance spaces of the newly renovated Wayland Hall gave them an opportunity to bond in the best way possible: a jam session on one of their first nights at JMU. “We had so much fun that we skipped the ice cream social.”

M a r io n G rey F re s h m an T h ea t re M a j o r J am e s M ad i s o n U niversit y

Stud e nt H ousi ng De s ig n

VMDO Architects Student Housing Design With over 40 years of experience designing residential buildings for educational institutions, VMDO brings value throughout the design and construction process. Our goal is to oversee the design and construction of enduring housing facilities by doing the following: INCORPORATE CONSTITUENT INPUT Successfully designing for an institution means incorporating the input of a variety of stakeholders. We understand how to engage a complex network of constituents in a fluid and effective design process. Their involvement begins with establishing clear goals – and ensures that our buildings resonate with the needs and culture of each particular collegiate community. CREATE A CLEAR VISION Clear project goals aligned with campus design principles will clarify what qualities and aspirations to develop in any housing construction project. Defining this vision requires careful thought and collaboration – as it forms the common ground for a successful residence hall design. ATTEND TO CRITICAL CONSTRUCTION DETAILS Our continuous work on residence halls means we are familiar not just with their spaces, but also with their construction. We understand what works and what doesn’t. We attend to the critical details so that your building will perform efficiently and effectively well into the future. DESIGN FOR THE CAMPUS We are committed to the long-term care and development of a campus. As stewards of a campus, we understand that our buildings will influence a place for years to come. We work hard to ensure that our design will both reflect and support a thriving academic environment.

Stud e nt H ousi ng De s ig n

Featured Projects VMDO offer experience designing resident life projects for various colleges and universities, including:

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Bridgewater College

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Clemson University

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Emory University

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George Mason University

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George Washington University

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Georgia Institute of Technology

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James Madison University

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Kennesaw State University

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Longwood University

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Old Dominion University

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Radford University

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University of Florida

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University of Miami

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University of South Carolina

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University of Virginia

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University of Virginia’s College at Wise

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Virginia Tech

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Washington & Lee University

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William & Mary

VMDO Architects vmdo.com | 434.296.5684 200 E Market St Charlottesville, VA 22902 2000 Pennsylvania Ave, Suite 7000 Washington, DC 20006

For more information on Student Housing work please contact: Michele Westrick, AIA, LEED AP BD+C westrick@vmdo.com Frances Watson Lengowski, AIA, LEED AP BD+C lengowski@vmdo.com

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