Designing a Freshman Residence Hall for the Next Generation

Students go through a transition during the years of college. They enter as adolescents  and exit as adults. During these years, students should be introduced to an environment that will keep them safe, healthy, and encourage them to maintain a balance between work and life. Creating a safe space for students in college is especially important in this time since there are so many groups students belong to ranging from race, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation. These areas should encourage students to be who they are and who they want to be without fear. Students also need to have a healthy body throughout college to go with their healthy mind. Taking care of one’s body in college can be challenging, but can be done right through nutrition, exercise, maintaining allergies, and avoiding toxicity. Lastly, students need to learn how to maintain a work-life balance throughout college in order decrease stress in already busy lives. Students need to manage time well to be productive in their work and have time for their own leisure. 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 of this study is to find out how freshmen residence halls can facilitate trends of creating a safe space, maintaining health and wellness, and creating a work-life balance through architectural design. The way this will be done is through two methods: literary review and precedent study. Since the topic of what makes a good residential hall isn’t new, there is considerable research literature on the subject. This includes looking deep into the subcategories of the three main ideas. In regards to creating a safe space, issues of gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and race are looked into and how the respective campuses have these issues or solve them. For maintaining health and wellness, issues of nutrition, exercise, allergies, and toxicity are looked into to keep students healthy. Lastly, for creating a work-life balance, topics of productivity, leisure time, and support for students through living-learning communities are looked into. The precedent study will focus on exceptional residential facilities in the architectural press, dormitories that relate issue-wise to the literary study and the facilities of local colleges in the Buffalo area. Each campus that offers freshman housing has its own different room styles and amenities.

All this material will result in the design or renovation of a university residence hall in Buffalo: a freshmen residence hall for the next generation. It will feature different styles of rooms for students of diverse personalities, backgrounds, and preferences. This includes their own definition of privacy, community, and convenience. 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.