I feel at home at the College of William and Mary. From the welcoming brick architecture of our academic buildings to the resplendent green spaces such as the Sunken Garden, this campus has something for everyone. Walking about campus, I always feel a great calm, as if the very ground I tread upon is soothing me. However, there lies one locality on this campus that causes my heart to tremble in fear. There is only one such place: the exterior doors to Lodge 1. What else could cause such a shiver in my spine as the doors to Lodge 1 ruthlessly unhinging into my face?
I will make my case with a story: It was a cool autumn day, and I was on my way to Cosi to enjoy a delectable bowl of Butternut Squash Soup. I approached Lodge 1 from the outside, already smelling the freshly baked multigrain bread from the oven. Then it happened: the doors were violently opened into my body. Someone leaving the Lodge explosively opened both doors into my direction, knocking my coffee and laptop onto the floor. It was disastrous. I’m sure whoever did this was a good person, and I forgive them because I understand now this calamitous occurrence is not their fault.
Those doors are a safety hazard.
Entering Lodge 1, the vestibule may appear spacious at first, with its imposing six-foot square walls able to process up to 10 adult-sized humans at a time. However, as the doors open outward, they remove usable space in the room. As a STEM major, I was able to calculate the area removed by the opening doors. I measured the radius of the doors to be 2.5 feet, and the area they remove from the room to be 9.81 square feet. Thus, I was able to subtract the area the doors impede upon from the area of the room. Factoring out the area of the doors, the vestibule has only 27.19 square feet of free space. This is only enough space for six adult-sized humans, a far cry from the colossal room mentioned before.
It would be preposterous of me to write about this issue and not propose a genial and helpful solution. So how do we fix this problem, you ask? Simple: I propose we reverse the direction of the doors, so they both open inwards.
This way, they will not open into my face as I enter Lodge 1 and they will not clutter the vestibule upon opening. I believe this will remove the stress of navigating the Lodge 1 area, and will relieve the cluttered and claustrophobic environment in the vestibule. Thus far, I have had countless friends agree with me on this pressing issue. I think this would improve the Lodge 1 area, and thus help William and Mary become the number one public university in Virginia as it deserves to be. By making this area more traversable, we can make William and Mary a more welcoming and inclusive environment for all members of the Tribe.
Email Michael Cairo and Jonathan Silberstein
