Social interaction in student residence halls: An architectural perspective
Open Access
- Author:
- Rahimi, Sohrab
- Graduate Program:
- Architecture
- Degree:
- Master of Architecture
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- June 18, 2015
- Committee Members:
- Alexandra Staub, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- Social Interaction
Residence Halls
Space syntax
Spatial analysis
Dormitories
socio-spatial environmental factors
proxemics - Abstract:
- The past decade has seen a considerable increase in student enrollment in postsecondary institutions nationwide. This increase has encouraged universities to plan new student housing facilities at the same time that family and student expectations have led to a reconsideration of residence halls and their amenities. Many universities have sought to keep students, especially upperclassmen, in on-campus housing, as a means of generating revenue as well as creating a sense of affiliation with the university community and minimizing student dropout rates. Facilitating social interaction among students is one of the most salient objectives of new on-campus housing developments. Social interaction aids in student retention, helps students to integrate themselves into broader student communities, increases learning opportunities, helps students adjust to their chosen universities’ educational goals, integrates minority students into universities’ social systems, and cultivates long-term relationships among students. While university administrators try to promote interactions among students in residence halls by providing meal plans and organizing social events or by manipulating the number and diversity of inhabitants (e.g. separating or mixing underclassmen and upperclassmen), less attention is usually paid to physical design factors. It is these physical factors, however, that are essential for creating stimulating environmental conditions that help students to interact. Despite the past decade’s increased university enrollment, there remains a need for a coherent study of physical design factors in residence halls from an architectural standpoint as they relate to sociability. This thesis aims to identify the environmental factors pertaining to social interaction in Northeastern and Midwestern residence halls in the United States. Two major steps were taken to identify these factors. First, the physical factors that influence social interactions in student residence halls were synthesized through an analysis of existing literature. A method was identified for categorizing dormitory buildings based on their socio-spatial attributes; these attributes were extracted from previous studies. Three major criteria for residential halls were extracted based on meta-analysis: the average number of bedrooms per auxiliary common space, the average number of bedrooms per service space, and the amount of corridor traffic flow. Using these criteria, 148 residence halls from four campuses in the Northeast and the Midwest were analyzed and five different typologies were developed. Secondly, a comparison was carried out between the final types in order to evaluate the degree of social interaction and the extent to which environmental factors contributed to this interaction. This resulted in developing activity maps of students’ movement patterns and interactions in these residence halls over multiple observation sessions. This study concludes that the environmental factors pertaining to social interaction in residence halls can be categorized into two broad groups: factors related to spatial configuration and factors related to the quality of individual spaces. For spatial configuration, three factors were identified: the separation of common spaces and individual spaces, the distribution of common spaces and individual spaces, and the fragmentation of spaces. Three factors pertaining to the quality of individual spaces were likewise identified: the visibility of spaces, the flexibility and functionality of spaces, and the finishing materials and colors. The environmental factors that were identified in this study provide a basis for architects and sociologists for both the design and assessment of the sociability level in various types of residence halls.