New Student Residence (2011 Strategic Plan)

A residential building could replace the Greenwich House complex and be beneficial in many ways: enhanced quality of student housing, meeting accessibility requirements, reflection of our institutional commitment to a healthy campus and healthy living spaces, replacement of outdated residential space, and provision of a positive long-term alternative to the costs of deferred maintenance.

Comments
Please include your thoughts on the importance of the initiative, how to frame the issue, things that may be missing, and any additional comments here (you can do so by logging into Hampedia and clicking edit):


 * Is there a more specific description of what this might look like? Concern: Apartment-style housing (mods), with its added autonomy, privacy, and kitchen space is far more popular than the dormitory-style housing. This causes the housing lottery to be extremely competitive. Though Greenwich is the least popular of the mod areas, replacing it with dormitory-style housing could worsen this problem. - Alynda Wood, Student
 * I think that a dorm style building (halls without kitchens or living spaces) would be unpopular and could make lottery problems worse. Also, a single building to replace the Greenwich neighborhood would have to be quite large, right? 40 mods? 300ish beds? Such a large building could be acceptable if the design were more sustainable than separate buildings and if the mods within could have a similar amount of privacy and openings to the outdoors. Get some student architects and/or classes to work on this. So many people at Hampshire are interested in sustainable building.-Emily Horne (F07)
 * I agree with previous comments and believe that Mod style autonomous living is very important to the mood on campus. It also seems as though we need more mods than we currently have, perhaps the new building/buildings should go up before we tear down Greenwich donuts, and we should also prioritize expanding the number of Mod beds. Gaines Blasdel F10
 * I agree with Gaines on expansion before tearing-down. It seems we have more than enough space to build more without replacing Greenwich.  We also have a lot of underutilized field space, so there may be a bigger environmental concern for wasting materials by tearing down Greenwich than there is for tearing down trees for new space.  I personally also like Greenwich, the dorms seem far more "outdated" in a quality or desire sense for must students. I agree that we definitely need more mod beds because the lottery is already pretty absurd and will only get worse as the college accepts more students each year. Also, there's other sustainable building options of course, but I oft daydream about having cob apartments on Hampshire. -Adam Quinn F10
 * I don't know if this is the right place to suggest this, but renting out the unused housing on campus during the summer would be a great way to raise money the college needs to build and update out residencies, and also would be convenient to students staying in the area over the summer. -kasey F08
 * I support almost all of these ideas (epsecially Kasey's, that's brilliant). I'd like to throw my weight behind Emily's idea for further consideration. There's no reason that apartments have to be in little buildings--in cities they're not, and it is indeed a more efficient way to build than most. Ellen Green
 * I agree with almost everything said here, especially Gaines, Adam, and Kasey. The independence of mod living is vital, and by building a fourth mod complex/expanding the Greenwich donuts instead of replacing them, we could also help solve problems relating to the infrequency of multi-year mods (with more space available, housing lottery will not be as trying and younger students will not be turned away from groups in favor of older students) and the lack of housing options for student with disabilities. -- Susie Svendsgaard, F10 (scs10@hampshire.edu)
 * I believe that a primary aspect of this plan should be to increase the net number of beds on campus. However even more important is that students like whatever is built.  Daniel_Homer