How have decisions been made on the design of the new housing?
The idea to build student housing has been under consideration within the College for at least 15 years. In the last eight years, there have been three separate studies and surveys conducted to determine what the students at Art Center wanted both in terms of type of housing and acceptable rents. What we learned from the various surveys were that Art Center students did not want a “dorm” type of student housing, but preferred to have relatively bare open space with a more “loft-like” feel to them. They didn’t want a living room, they wanted work space—so no sofas, etc. They wanted the project to be sustainable. They rejected a recreation room in favor of an assembly/work space where hand tools, etc. could be used. They wanted some outdoor space, and they tended to gravitate toward single units over multiple shared units.
