Transforming College Life: Housing and the Student Experience, Part II

In Part 1 of this series, we explored some of the ways housing factors into supporting a positive student experience within a campus community. Student housing, among other facilities and programs, can help support the health, wellbeing, and academic success of student populations by encouraging social interactions and providing each student with a safe and comfortable space to call their own. 

 Whether a campus is large or small, urban or rural, every college and university is unique and should offer student housing options that best serve their unique student populations. From shared dorm rooms to private apartments, it’s important to select the right type, scale, and variety of housing when determining what to build.

Traditional Dorms

Traditional dorms, prevalent throughout the mid-20th century, are a common housing type at institutions of all scales. Consisting primarily of two-person sleeping quarters, these rooms will often feature side-by-side or bunk style beds as well as a desk and closet for each student. Traditional dorms rely on a model where students must leave their rooms to access bathrooms, showers, dining facilities, and lounges. In these centralized facilities, services are typically shared amongst all residents of a given floor or building. What this model lacks in privacy and convenience, it makes up for with increased opportunity for social interactions and a lower price point. Colleges and universities typically reserve some, or all, of their traditional dorm rooms for incoming freshman and underclassmen as these populations tend to benefit more from the social interactions that shared spaces encourage. 

Suite-style Dorms

Suite style dorms are similar to traditional dorms in that they tend to consist primarily of two-person sleeping quarters. However, these models differ slightly in that they organize a small number of dorm rooms around shared bathrooms and lounge spaces. This model provides similar opportunities for social interactions through shared space but limits the total number of students with access to a particular suite. While this provides higher degrees of safety and privacy, it still allows for some social interactions. Like traditional dorms, this model requires students to leave their suite in order to access dining facilities. Unlike traditional dorms, however, it can make it harder for residence life staff to monitor student activity within the suites themselves.  

Micro-unit Style Dorms

Micro-units are small-footprint, studio apartment–style units that typically house only one or two students. Sleeping quarters are paired with a private bathroom, shower, and kitchen or kitchenette to create a self-contained living unit. These spaces most closely resemble hotel rooms and provide students with the opportunity to live more independently than shared models do. While micro units offer more privacy, they are less efficient from a square footage and construction cost perspective and are therefore often reserved for upper classmen and graduate students.

Apartment-style Dorms

 Like micro units, apartment style dorms provide all the required facilities within a single unit. These units are usually designed to house between 3 and 10 students and will often feature a full kitchen, living room, and laundry. This model has been growing in popularity as expectations around student living have shifted. Many colleges and universities are beginning to provide apartment style dorms as a way of differentiating themselves from the competition to better attract top students.  

While apartment style dorms are the most expensive housing type to build, one benefit is they can be developed on- or off-campus with the partnership of a private developer to help manage capital expenditures. Additionally, if designed appropriately, apartment style student housing projects can be converted to market rate housing in the future, giving an institution more control in how it manages its assets over time. 

Growing Interest in Office Conversions 

Colleges and universities, many of whom had begun offering remote learning options, saw decreases in enrollment and on-campus presence during the pandemic. Similarly, work-from-home programs and hybrid work models changed the way people work and live. While many institutions have begun to return to pre-pandemic enrollment levels and on-campus activities, many commercial office buildings have not yet recovered. 

Cities and towns around the country face a growing inventory of underutilized commercial office space as long-term leases expire and businesses continue to offer remote work to their employees. At the same time, a severe shortage of market rate and affordable housing inventory has created an emerging market for office-to-housing conversions. While this model offers colleges and universities the opportunity to increase housing inventory without relying on new construction or renovation of an existing asset, there are a number of challenges that should be considered. 

Office buildings tend to have deeper floor plates than housing buildings with user occupied spaces organized around the exterior wall, and elevators, stairs, bathrooms, and mechanical spaces organized around the building’s core. Office buildings tend to be most efficient with large, open seating areas whereas apartment buildings typically require less internal program and more exterior wall area to accommodate all of the individual living and sleeping spaces. This means office conversions require creative plan making in order to provide adequate access to daylight and views. 

Existing column spacing can also present a challenge to space planning. As an example, if a typical dorm is 15 feet wide but an office building’s column spacing is 18 feet on center, the columns will likely interrupt interior spaces or otherwise impact furniture placement. Alternatively, if the units are increased to an 18 feet module, the total number of potential units is reduced. This means that most office buildings are not easily converted to housing without a corresponding drop in efficiency, resulting in fewer beds per square foot than might be achieved with new construction. 

 An existing building’s structural system should be considered as it relates to mechanical, plumbing, and electrical infrastructure. Whether the existing structural system is steel, cast-in-place concrete, pre-cast concrete, or other similar systems, care must be taken in planning the required mechanical and plumbing infrastructure to avoid conflicts with existing beams or reinforcement. As housing projects require plumbing penetrations at all kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks, toilets, showers, bathtubs, washing machines, and other similar fixtures, this can introduce greater degrees of inefficiency and potential for costs associated with modifications to the existing structure. 

While office conversions can be a great way to repurpose underutilized inventory, these constraints should be carefully considered to determine whether an existing building is a suitable candidate for conversion to housing. 

Determining the Best Approach

Because there is no one-size-fits-all solution, finding the best solution often requires careful analysis and engagement with stakeholders throughout the campus community. It’s also important to consider how certain types of housing will fit into the college or university’s long-term vision and goals – be they spatial, financial, environmental, or otherwise. 

 Using a holistic design approach, we work closely with our higher-education partners to help evaluate their current housing inventory, associated market trends, and anticipated growth projections to help determine which housing typologies will best meet the needs of their student populations.