Draft Design Principles

Living Learning Project

version 01, date 11.5.02

Layers of Community

Issue: A major goal of on-campus housing is to help students become integrated into the campus community. The d.esign of this project can either enhance or hinder the formation of social groups
Principle: Design the building to form nested social groups at various scales, supported by lounges, "living rooms", and other building elements, considering the following social scales:

Room: double occupancy (two people)
Hearth [design principle to be written, social group of 20-25?]
Living room [or Lounge][design principle to be written, social group of 125 to 175?]
Building complex: social group of 400 to 450
University campus

Different strategies are appropriate at each scale to maximize the opportunities for interaction, but the overall effect of these measures should be to maximize the social integration of students new to the university.

[diagram]

Preview Social Spaces

Issue: People are reluctant to enter shared social spaces such as lounges unless they know in advance who is already there. If it is relatively distant, they may not want to invest the time to go to the remote social space. Also, people may or may not want to enter depending on which people are already there, or the friend-or-foe syndrome.
Principle: Provide an effective preview so that people can see into a social space without entering it. For greatest effectiveness, provide a preview from a distance, such as from the door of an individuals room to a lounge on a lower floor.

[diagram]

Social Stair

Issue:
Principle:

Residential Unit Cluster

Issue:
Principle:

Imprintable Room Entrance

Issue: College is, for many students, an impersonal experience. One of their few opportunities to personalize their environment is their room, and the outside of the hallway door is their billboard to their world.
Principle: Design the doors to rooms to be easy to personalize, yet easy to restore to a neutral state for the next occupant(s).

[photo]

Universal Design

Issue:
Principle:

 

Student Hearth [to be written]

Issue: Plenty of residence hall lounges don't get much use, and never feel at all like home. They may have programmed activities, and there are times that all available space is used for studying, but a successful residence hall has social spaces that get frequent, informal use.
Principle: For every group of [???25???] students, create a student "hearth", half-open to the intersection of corridors, and visible from vertical circulation (stairs, elevators). Design the corridor edges so that social events can overflow into the corridors.

 

[diagram]

 

Building Living Room [to be written]

Issue:
Principle:

 

Group Study Alcoves

Issue: Study groups depend in part on the design of the spaces used by the group. Research [ref. Light] indicates that students who study in groups are more successful than students who study alone.
Principle: UO students indicate that neither a fully private room nor a large, shared, unarticulated open space are conducive to group study. Design group study areas that are enclosed on three sides, partially or fully open to circulation on the fourth side, with windows on one wall, and a table and chairs for up to four students. Build the study rooms in groups rather than isolated individually to create a studious zone, and to make it easier to find an available study room.

[diagram or photo]

Corridors

Issue:
Principle: