Student Housing in 2011 and Beyond

The new San Francisco planning resolution to encourage the new construction of student housing within the city—promoted heavily by the San Francisco Housing Coalition and approved unanimously in November, 2010 by the Board of Supervisors—comes at an interesting juncture in the evolution of that building type. While the ordinance serves several critical goals for the city and the 31 colleges and universities located in San Francisco, I realize, from my 25 plus years of designing student housing, that new projects are typically expensive to build.

New residence halls generally operate at a loss for the first five years of occupation. Often, universities rely on income from their older dorms—with paid off construction costs—to offset the typically high initial costs of their new, flagship housing projects.

The new San Francisco Planning resolution certainly eases some of these fiscal constraints, but new student housing projects remain difficult to “pencil out.”

What has driven up the cost of this project type? This is partly the result of changing student expectations about university experience and partly a broader demographic shift. More and more, students are looking for a highly immersive academic experience. It’s not enough to leave home, and live on their own: today’s students want the maximum academic and cultural “bang” for their (increasingly expensive) buck. They are looking for housing that is on campus or nearby, connected to research and classroom activities, and providing an ongoing engagement to campus life. More upperclassmen and even graduate students are choosing to live in student housing for these reasons.

Simultaneously, universities are experiencing an overall growth in student enrollment as well as an ongoing increase in foreign student enrollment, both of which place more demand on student housing facilities. What’s the new approach to student housing design? I have always believed in designing student housing environments, whether in urban areas or on non-urban campuses—which create community to allow residents to integrate into academic life.

This approach requires understanding that while students require privacy—the expanded range of unit types now includes apartments and suites with unit amenities such as kitchen—they also seek social engagement.

On campus, the monumental, central dining hall, long a fixture of student housing projects, is being replaced or at least supplemented with new types of food service, typically café-scaled and dispersed, and often more public than the traditional interior dining hall.
 

Baytree Bookstore & Graduate Student Commons, UC Santa Cruz

 

Yablokoff-Wallace Dining Expansion, UC Merced

 Urban areas like San Francisco or Berkeley intrinsically (and free of charge to a developer) provide many of the amenities that traditional campus housing attempts to incorporate within the residence halls, particularly if housing is located in neighborhoods with active streetlife. In this case, the design solutions would address density and in-room amenities as well as access and security, particularly at the street-level.

Currently, very few universities (let alone cities) are looking at high-rise student residences, but this may well be a trend of the future.

One exception is the University Center of Chicago—a “super dorm” built to house 1,700 students on 18 floors from three downtown schools. Another is Nido Spitalfields in the United Kingdom, which at 34 stories is currently the tallest student housing building in the world.

Infill student housing entails a greater interaction with the surrounding urban environment. One particular challenge is how to provide outdoor spaces for student use. While this need is traditionally served by the surrounding landscape of a traditional campus, infill developments require a different typology. In designing Residence Halls Units 1 & 2 at the University of California, Berkeley, my team and I developed outdoor plazas that are roof decks above student support programs and which, while primarily used by students, are also a public neighborhood amenity.

Residence Halls Units 1&2 Infill Student Housing, UC Berkeley

Increasing student expectations for sustainable and environmentally progressive living situations means we at EHDD need to continue to push the envelope—Units 1 & 2 is designed to be LEED® Silver, and I lead the project team for a net-zero energy student housing project at the University of California, Merced. While many strategies are visible, such as energy dashboards, solar hot water, green roofs and grey water systems; others are not.

For our recently-completed historic renovation at the Clark Kerr Campus at UC Berkeley—a double LEED Gold certified-project—many of the sustainable solutions are literally inside the walls.

Clark Kerr Campus Renewal Sustainable Section

But it is also the client with an abiding commitment to sustainability who helps enable innovation. One such client is Chris Harvey, director of Residential and Student Service Programs Capital Projects at UC Berkeley, who oversaw both the Units 1 & 2 and Clark Kerr Campus Renewal projects.

How can one make the case for urban dorms? Student housing has, potentially, an important role to play in the larger process of urban vitalization. In bringing student activity, and business, to new neighborhoods—as UC Hastings College of Law envisions for its campus bordering the gritty Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco—student housing projects can contribute to an ongoing economic and cultural revival in these areas. Our developer-led proposal for housing along Bancroft Avenue in Berkeley is planned as the centerpiece of a broader business redevelopment project along Telegraph Avenue.

Mixed-use Student Housing

As someone who long ago lived in a standard double room on a double-loaded corridor on a floor with gang bathrooms on the University of Oregon campus, I am amazed at today’s student housing. What’s next? Here’s a glimpse into the future: If Nido Spitalfieds is any indication, it is the “five-star” dorm with hotel-like amenities. (See link to FT’s recent article entitled “It feels like a five-star hotel” regarding the project:)


It’s time to sharpen those pencils!
Duncan Ballash, AIA
President