The Way We Live Now: 9-5-99: Salient Facts, Student Housing; Luxury 101
THE BASICS
For decades the design trend in college dormitories could be summed up in one word: cheap. In the 1960's, when the Federal Government subsidized dorm construction, some frugal universities even bolted the furniture to the floor in order to write it off as part of the building's infrastructure. But in recent years that trend has reversed itself, led by cash-rich universities in search of a competitive advantage. At the head of this class is Boston University, which is now building a superdorm at a cost of $100,000 per student, double the national average. The glass-and-steel tower looks less like a rooming house than a sleek yuppie condo, with sweeping views of the Charles River and the Boston skyline. All bedrooms are private, sharing carpeted suites and genuine kitchens -- adult-size fridges, built-in microwaves, garbage disposals, the works. Over the river in Cambridge, M.I.T., concerned about the well-being of students living in unsupervised housing, has commissioned a new dorm from the avant-garde architect Stephen Holl. Currently under construction, it will have pocket parks, a rainwater fountain, suicide-preventing windows (they open only 45 degrees) and solar-powered fans that blow air down light shafts. ''The building has lungs,'' Holl says. ''It breathes.''
THE EXTRAS
Some urban schools have sought to overcome their lack of grassy expanses by loading as many campuslike amenities into the dormitories as possible. In the fall of 2001, N.Y.U. will unveil a $95 million 16-story tower just east of Union Square Park. The third in a series of lavish new dorms, it will house a recreation center with more than 100 state-of-the-art exercise machines, a mirrored dance studio with a maple suspension floor, a pool, a gymnasium, a juice bar and a two-and-a-half-story $100,000 climbing wall. All the food at the in-house cafeteria will be cooked to order. Kevin Roche, the architect, admits that his own dorm tastes run to ''a spare room with an exposed bulb,'' but is well aware of the demands of the marketplace. ''Parents want to be satisfied that their loved ones are well cared for,'' Roche says. As for the students, some take the long view. ''It's nice to look at, but I know people who have left school because of financial reasons,'' says Camile Gayle, a senior from Florida. ''I'd much rather see the money going to scholarships than the fancy-schmancy stuff.''
THE PERSONAL TOUCHES
At the same time, other schools are phasing out TV lounges, game rooms and study areas because students bring so much of their own equipment (from stereos and TV's to powerful computers, scanners, color printers, fax machines and satellite dishes) that there's dwindling demand for shared facilities. Instead, colleges focus on putting in a lot of new electrical outlets -- as many as four times what older dormitories had -- not to mention extra data jacks and cable TV plugs. But after spending all this money on new dorms, universities are less tolerant than ever of students applying their own quirky home-design visions to their rooms. Melinda Roberts, a Yale senior, used lots of green paint, plants, wall hangings and stuffed monkeys to transform her dorm room last year into ''a jungle room.'' She's disappointed by this year's digs: a brand-new suite with private kitchen and bathroom. ''In the new dorm you can't paint the walls and you can't bring furniture -- it is all supplied,'' she says. ''All the rooms are identical. It will be a challenge to make it livable.''
SAFE AND SOUND
In keeping with the larger societal trend, colleges have been vigilantly cracking down on crime. Often, this has simply meant more surveillance cameras and guards. But U.C.L.A., seeking less intrusive methods, is constructing a new dormitory along the principles of ''defensible space'' -- small villagelike clusters of dorms (rather than impersonal high-rises), with highly visible public areas and doormen rather than security guards. ''The way in which the space is designed allows self-policing,'' says Charles W. Oakley, the campus architect. Other schools are experimenting with higher-tech security devices. In N.Y.U.'s new dorms, for example, students gain admission to the building by placing their hands against an optical scanner that takes 96 measurements and checks them against a database. On a couple of campuses in the South, students are opting for a Walkmate, a beeper-size device with three panic buttons to contact university police officers and alert them to any of the student's pre-existing medical conditions ($54.95 a semester, plus a $25 activation fee). ''My dad has given me dorm alarms, stun gun, pepper spray, mace,'' says Elizabeth L. Logan, a University of South Florida student who has signed up for the Walkmate service. ''I am not paranoid. But I think my dad is.''
No comments:
Post a Comment