printable versionDorms to be less crowded under housing master plan
BY KATHLEEN J. SULLIVAN
Rebecca Castro and Margaret Rawson currently share a “mini double,” a room in Lagunita Court originally designed for one person.
Nearly five-dozen beds will be removed from Branner Hall, which soon will house upperclass students.
Come fall, some familiar phrases will vanish from the Stanford housing lexicon.
No longer will freshmen live in "mini doubles"—dormitory rooms in Lagunita Court designed for one person that now hold two, each of whom sleeps on a twin bed raised to "captain's height" to create precious-as-gold storage space beneath the bed frame.
No longer will upperclass students—sophomores, juniors and seniors—live in "two-bedroom triples" in Mirrielees Apartments. The apartments, originally designed for two people, were renovated to accommodate three, including the unlucky roommates who drew the short straws and ended up in bunk beds.
No longer will a student study at—or sleep in—a "hidden desk bed," an ingenious variation on the Murphy bed that could be a desk or a bed, just never both at the same time.
The phrases will vanish this summer—along with hundreds of beds, desks and chairs that have been squeezed into dorms and apartments in recent years—as Stanford launches the first phase of a housing master plan designed to reduce crowding in undergraduate residences.
"One of our goals is to take dorms back to their original designs," said Shirley Everett, senior associate vice provost of Residential and Dining Enterprises.
Under the plan, Stanford will offer more "all-frosh" dorms, for which demand has long exceeded supply.
It also will provide more "premiere" rooms—single rooms and doubles in which each student has his/her own bedroom—for upperclass students.
Among the major housing changes envisioned under the first phase of the plan:
Rodger Whitney, the university's chief housing officer, said the catalyst for implementing the plan was the opening of the Munger Graduate Residence on Campus Drive East. Two of its five buildings are now occupied, and three more will open this year.
When the complex opened in December, about 175 graduate students quickly moved in, emptying the nearby Crothers Hall and Crothers Memorial Hall, a pair of aging dormitories now getting a $22 million makeover.
The Crothers dorms will house 376 upperclass students when the buildings reopen in September, complete with new furnishings.
Over the last 86 years, Branner has been a men's dorm, a women's dorm, a four-class dorm and, for the last several decades, an all-frosh dorm. This summer, nearly five-dozen beds will be removed, providing roomier quarters for its next residents—122 upperclass students.
Under the plan, Stanford will increase the number of dormitories devoted solely to freshmen by designating five houses in Stern Hall and seven houses in Wilbur Hall as all-frosh dorms. Casa Zapata, the Chicano/Latino ethnic theme residence located in Stern, and Okada House, the Asian American ethnic theme dorm located in Wilbur, will remain four-class residences.
Together, Stern and Wilbur will house about two-thirds of the Class of 2013, creating a neighborhood on the east side of campus of about 1,100 freshmen. The rest of the freshmen—about 600 students—will live on the west side of campus, taking up residence in Lagunita Court, Florence Moore Hall, Roble Hall and Sterling Quad.
As for those hidden desk beds—two of them were installed this year—they're history.
Everett and Whitney, who saw the space-saving beds at a trade show and decided to try out a pair in a pilot program, said they were cleverly designed: A desktop crowded with books, papers, an open laptop and a cup of coffee didn't need to be cleared before pulling down the bed for sleeping. But they discovered that students liked having their bed and their desk equally accessible all the time—for studying, for reading, for hanging out with friends.
"I was pleased we were able to conduct a pilot program," Everett said. "And the students were wonderful to work with."