3 Institutions Will Plan 21st-Century Dormitories in Housing Project’s Next Stage

A design by Net+Work+Camp+Us was chosen in an earlier stage of an effort by housing officials to improve residence-hall design. (Image courtesy of ACUHO-I)

Baylor University, Colorado College, and Indiana University at Bloomington have been chosen for the next stage of an ambitious effort to rethink residence halls for the 21st century. The effort, called the 21st Century Project, is a multiyear undertaking of the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International.

In the first stage of the project, completed in 2007, a jury selected a winner from among 46 entries in a contest to design the ideal dormitory room for the new century. It turned out to be a stackable, truckable unit with modular furniture that could be switched out as the university’s needs changed. The contest followed a planning summit in which members of the housing-officials association brainstormed about how best to meet students’ needs in the coming decades.

In the second stage, a new jury chose an updated monastic quadrangle as the most versatile form for the residence hall of the future. The third stage is intended to build on what participants — institutions as well as architects — have learned in earlier rounds.

The three institutions chosen to take part will convene their own planning summits, with facilitators leading discussions about how to create community, add flexibility, and assure sustainability in new residence halls that also meet the institutions’ other needs. If the institutions wish, they can use the meetings’ results to prepare requests-for-proposals for actual residence-hall projects. The institutions will also report back to the association and make their meetings’ results available for review by other association members.

While none of the three institutions has pledged outright to carry the project through to the construction phase, all three said the effort would undoubtedly influence their residence-hall planning, and Patrick H. Connor, executive director of residential programs and services at Indiana University, said that his institution hoped “to deliver a residential facility that looks to the future, providing a vibrant community where campus life and learning intersect.”

Michael Coakley, chairman of the 21st Century project and executive director of university housing at Arizona State University, was more hopeful yet. “When these communities are complete,” he said, “they will demonstrate new ways that campus housing can contribute to the entire student development process and experience.”