Tuesday, Nov. 23, students gathered for a discussion hosted by the Office of the University Architect on the West Woods Two housing project. At the meeting, students shared their opinions on the College’s current housing options, as well as future design ideas they would like to see implemented at West Woods Two.
The project, facilitated by the Goody Clancy design team, will contain three new residence halls with a total of 450 new beds. Two of the buildings will contain a mix of semi-suite and traditional housing, and one will contain all traditional housing. It will replace the current Randolph Housing Complex.
Goody Clancy representative Lisa Ferrara described the company’s outlook on the site.
“It’s very lush, this is a very unique site,” Ferrea said Lisa Ferrera. “And a lot of people meander through the woods. Thinking about its unique characteristics is part of the design projects we’re considering.”
One of the main concerns about the Randolph Complex site is the sloped terrain. The complex is situated on a variety of hills, which makes it difficult to create accessible paths.
After a general introduction to the site and its difficulties, the Office of the University Architect opened the discussion to students, handing them notecards with three key questions: How can the design of buildings support students’ wellness? How can residence halls support sustainable practices? How can privacy and community spaces best be balanced?
In regards to wellness, students were particularly interested in the ways their current dorms either encourage or discourage their mental health and well-being. Students mentioned ways lighting choices could impact their mental health, with most preferring natural and warmer light, especially in their rooms.
“We all want dimmer, lower light situations and something that kind of feels more like home, not the overhead harsh lighting that we have throughout the rest of campus,” Cassie Palmer ’27 said.
Students also discussed how furniture can impact their mental health. Most expressed a preference for more homey furniture, such as that found in the former Brown Hall, rather than the colder and simpler furniture in more modern buildings like The Sadler Center’s Slice.
“I think making the commitment to being homier and not following the trend of The Slice and other new buildings where they just try to make it as corporate and cold as possible is important,” Mateo Huerta ’25. “Making it feel like you could have stepped into somebody’s living room and not tinto someone’s hotel lounge… because those things suck.”
Sustainability was another key aspect Goody Clancy wants to prioritize, hoping the West Woods Two project becomes their first LEEDS certified platinum building, a designation awarded to environmentally-friendly structures by the U.S. Green Building Council. Ferrera said they wanted their first certified platinum building to be a dorm.
Students were passionate about sustainability on-campus as well. They took a much more practical approach, focusing on issues such as laundry, in-room sinks, accessibility to composting and trash and recycling dumpsters, and sheltered bike storage.
In that same vein, students expressed favoritism towards building practices that embraced the natural area around them. As the West Woods Two complex will be located in a heavily wooded area, students highly favored integrating nature into the building’s design.
“I think we need to have a better mix of sustainable materials, like wood and glass,” Huerta said.
Lastly, students answered questions on how private and community spaces could best be integrated. Students living in the newly renovated Monroe Hall expressed satisfaction regarding their dorm’s balance of both aspects.
“God, I love it,” Anne Hensley ’28 said. “The thing about Monroe is it is so special because there are so many community spaces. The floors have really developed individual identities.”
Students in the Randolph Complex expressed similar beliefs about their community spaces, highlighting that they were the area of their dorms they loved most. Students also shared their desire for study rooms in the dorms, as well as an equal distribution of community spaces within freshman and upperclassmen halls. While freshman dorms often centralize community spaces in the floor plan, upperclassmen dorms tend to isolate lounges in a corner.
“I feel like Hardy is hospital-like,” Palmer said. “You never have a situation in which you have to interact with someone, you could go the entire day without seeing a single person.”
Palmer hopes the College takes student feedback into account when constructing the new dorms, making sure to prioritize the quality of their living experience.
“I’m really hoping they take the feedback we provided tonight and actual use it to build dorms that are not just like the hotels they are currently sketched out to be,” Palmer said. “Especially if we have to live through more years of construction, we want it to actually be beneficial and not just something the community is stuck with.”
