For some people, leaving home for the first time can be a challenging thing. It means starting a new life and stepping into a whole new world, especially when entering college. Students go through a transition during those years of school. They enter as children and exit as adults. During these years, students find out about themselves. They find out their own identify by figuring out what they like, don’t like, and who they are in general. Students also learn how to get out of their comfort zone, meaning socializing. College is not just a time for one’s education, but also for learning how to make new friends, get along with roommates, and maintain those relationships. Lastly, without parents, students have to everything on their own and become more independent. This includes shopping, food, and finding balance between the schoolwork and relaxing. This transition can be made easier if prepared well in the beginning with the correct environment within their school. This leads to quality freshmen student housing.

The aim for this study is to find out how freshmen residence halls can facilitate goals of identity, independence, and social skills and how it can be provided through architectural design. It would also take notice of a safe and secure environment would include safety of students, crime, reputation, and marketing. The way this will be done is through three methods: literary review, precedent study, and survey. Since the topic of what makes a good residential hall isn’t new, there are plenty of previous experiments and surveys that have been done on that works as well as student preferences, and their own psychological behavior. These will be analyzed for a literary study. For the precedent study, while a few exceptional dormitories will be looked at, it will primarily be on the colleges within Buffalo. Each campus that offers freshman housing has its own different room styles and amenities. Lastly, a survey will be issued to students of the University at Buffalo asking them of their opinions of their on-campus housing as a freshman and what can be changed. There is no better source of information than from the people who use these facilities.

All this material will result in the design or renovation of a university residence hall within the location of Buffalo, since that is where most of the approach is. The design would take note of what the university/college do for freshmen and then grant what they need. It will feature different styles of rooms for students of diverse personalities and preferences. This includes their own definition of privacy, community, and convenience. Additionally, the design will also have amenities that will help and benefit students and make their already busy lives a little easier. The implications of this study would be to improve freshmen housing in universities to better prepare freshmen students for the years ahead by helping them learn about themselves.