Talking Stick - November/December 2016 - 62

 45  CONTINUED

STUDY HAUL

with recent renovations that gave
new life to student study spaces.
Gregory Wright, associate director of
Auxiliary Capital Projects, notes that
a two-story addition turned what had
been a neglected basement of North
Quadrangle hall into an inviting study
lounge. Similarly, when the school
created study booths in its Alice
Lloyd Hall and the South Quadrangle
hall, they were placed on the main
concourse, which put students in
the middle of everything. However,
equipping the area with a low acoustic
ceiling as well as sound-absorbing
seat and wall fabrics allows it to be a
surprisingly quiet space. As a result,
study spaces have become a popular
location with the proper mix of public
access and privacy.
One of the most interesting results
of the TreanorHL research was the
discovery that equity isn't always a
necessary consideration. Conventional
wisdom has said, in the past, that the
different floors or pods of a residence
hall should all be equally equipped.
In the newsletter, Tipton explains
the need for variety. "While many
residence halls have similar lounges
from floor to floor, having a variety of
environments actually increased usage
and satisfaction. We need a mix of
social and study spaces, spaces that are
flexible and adaptable enough so that
students can use them in the way they
want in the moment."
Such variety was on display
when the new freshman residence
hall opened at the University of
Alabama at Birmingham in 2015. The
hall encompasses 217,000 square
feet over an eight-story tower and
a four-story wing and houses 700
first-year students. It also includes
two different types of community
spaces: more traditional community
rooms and what are known as knuckle
areas. According to Brian Johnson,
Alabama's director of residence life, it
was "designed to assist in bridging the
gap between the residential and the
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TALKING STICK

academic environment and to aid in
establishing positive floor, communal,
and peer-to-peer relationships. The
community rooms are your traditionalstyle community spaces with tables,
ample seating, large white boards,
and a flat-screen television. Each
community room has a different
layout with a different furniture type
and color scheme," he explains. "The
knuckle areas are located on the
corners of the L-shaped hallway of the
eight-story tower and at the end of
the hallway on the four-story wings,"
he adds. "These areas are adorned
with modern contemporary seating
and a flat-screen television. To date,
residents and student staff members
have used these spaces as centralized
locations to meet up and hang out with
their floor neighbors and to host study
sessions, floor meetings, and floor
programs." A similar approach was
used with the Daisy Hill community
at the University of Kansas. While the
space serves as areas for recreation
and multipurpose meeting rooms, it
also includes smaller areas - including
outdoor gathering spaces designed to
facilitate smaller groups and ad hoc
meetings.
Of course, sometimes there is the
risk of lounges becoming too popular
and accommodating. Chareny Rydl,
the director of residence life at Texas
A&M University in College Station,
describes how Hullabaloo Hall, which
opened in 2013, "brings an open
access computing lab in a community
learning center, music practice
rooms, flexible multipurpose space,
and game room into the heart of a
residential community. The aesthetics
are warm and light, the art tells a story
of past, present, and future, and the
furnishings support students' style
of living." Students were generally
pleased with the results; TreanorHL
survey results showed that 69 percent
of the participants felt that the social
spaces helped create community
among the students, 48 percent said

that they participated in group study
sessions in the lounge one or more
times a week, and 47 percent said they
used the small study room at least
once a week. In fact, about the only
complaint was that the lounges proved
so popular that they would fill up with
students who had come to Hullabaloo
Hall from other parts of campus.
The debate between public
and private space within residence
halls is not likely to end anytime
soon, especially as campuses face
pressure to generate more revenue
per square foot. As these and many
more examples show, though, when
approached with the correct amount
of planning and foresight and when
outfitted with the fixtures and features
students need, a well-designed study
space will always deliver a true return
on investment. 

James A. Baumann is the editor of Talking
Stick and the director of communications and
marketing for ACUHO-I.
 james@acuho-i.org
Talking Stick - November/December 2016

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