Arthi Krishnamoorthy of TenBerke | The Princeton Residential Colleges in Princeton | Dormitories, Then and Now

Transcript

Announcer 00:02

Welcome to American Building, a weekly recorded show whose mission is to share an alternative perspective of what we build in America, and why. Together we discover how the work of the real estate industry connects to every American. In season two, we focused on how buildings changed as a result of the pandemic. In this season, we're revisiting conversations from previous seasons, to see where Americans put their heads down at night. Together, we will discover the many definitions of home across the New York City metropolitan area, which includes over 23 million Americans. Each week, we'll visit a new building and explore complex and confusing issues related to housing access to see what they can teach us about ourselves, and our country will meet those who work to develop in thoughtful and impactful ways, who build neighborhoods to be more sustainable, affordable, accessible, or inclusive, who labor to create thriving communities, and transform the lives of generations to come. Through their stories, we will humanize often polarizing topics. Profound, surprising, and hilarious. This show is for developers and builders with boots on the ground for innovators trying to find ways to improve our industry, for the policymakers and public employees. And for any person who is walked by a building and wondered why. And now your host award winning architect turned developer and startup founder Atif Qadir, AIA.

Atif Qadir 01:53

This is American Building. And I'm your host, Atif Qadir. I'm the founder of commonplace. Join me as it take a drive by the skylines and strip malls, crosswalks, and rail crossings, balconies, buildings and boroughs to discover a new generation of housing. Let's build common ground.

Atif Qadir 02:25

In this episode, you will learn about the history of the dormitory. And you'll join me in hearing about yay college and new college West, a multi building dormitory complex at Princeton University. Yay college was called New College East when this episode was originally recorded. The word dormitory is from the Latin root word dormir, which means to sleep. The word found its way into Old French and Old English in the 1300s. By the 1700s, the word was used to describe the residence hall of a college or university. In the US, the first dormitories were those associated with the colonial colleges being Harvard, the College of William and Mary, Yale, UPenn, Princeton, Columbia, brown, Rutgers and Dartmouth.

Atif Qadir 03:27

The classic image of the dormitory in American culture is a reflection of the buildings forming the core campuses of these universities. They typically have three to six storeys with flat roofs, crenelated, or hipped roof lines, faced with brick, brownstone or limestone and designed in a collegiate Gothic or colonial style. On the inside, they're often laid out around a single staircase or entrance, with bedrooms organized around common living areas. In the early days of the colonial colleges, attending college was reserved for a small number of mostly wealthy white males, often studying to become preachers.

Atif Qadir 04:13

Today, there are 23 million university students in the United States. Notably, college enrollment has grown three to 6% per year since 2010, far outpacing US population growth of 0.3 to 0.5% per year, over the past few years. About 40% of students today live in dormitories. What dormitories look like has also changed over time from the colonial colleges. That includes new design trends from neoclassical to international to modern to postmodern. In an article for surface magazine, writer Ryan wood, oops, talks About a new breed of dormitory called dorms villas. These are windowless dorms that are meant to increase density where land is a precious resource. The University of Texas took this route by skirting building codes, using an exception allowed in the International Building Code to fully sprinklered buildings.

Atif Qadir 05:22

Perhaps the most famous example is Munger Hall at the University of California Santa Barbara. The 4500 Bed dormitory is being paid for by billionaire investor, Charlie Munger, and 94% of the rooms don't have Windows based on mongers specifications. architecture critic Paul Goldberger called it a grotesque sick joke, a jail masquerading as a dormitory. The link to this article in service magazine is in the show notes. dorms are not the only new things on campus. During three years of zoom college dormitories across the country were mostly empty. Fall 2022 saw the rise of the revenge coed that resulted in surging enrollment and historic levels of on campus housing demand with longer waitlist than ever before.

Atif Qadir 06:25

Traditionally, market rate housing around universities are preferred off campus housing options, particularly for upper class people who want more independence. But with runaway inflation, contributing to skyrocketing rents, that has become less appealing. Universities with insufficient housing often resort to leasing nearby hotels like Florida Atlantic University did this year. Some had to go even further by incentivizing local alumni to open their homes to students as borders. For example, the University of Utah was able to house 100 students by offering alumni $5,000 per semester.

Atif Qadir 07:16

In this episode of American building, I am sharing an edited version of the conversation I had in January 2022 With architect Aarthi Krishna Murthy. Aarthi is a Senior Principal at 10 Burke, which is the new name of Deborah Burke partners, the New York City based design firm. Prior to Deborah Burke partners Aarthi worked at and started her career at Pelli Clarke Pelli. Last season, we had architect Raphael Pelley of Pelli Clarke Valley on the show. Aarthi is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the University of Pennsylvania. Enjoy the conversation. And if you're interested in more stories related to housing and impact, visit the commonplace website. commonplace is the company I founded to make it easier to finance impactful Real Estate projects.

Atif Qadir 08:15

So you have now had the opportunity to do design projects all across the country before this project here in Princeton that we're going to be focusing on. So which of these projects stand out the most for you and what have you taken away from them.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 08:31

So we do do work all over the country. We've designed this series of hotels called the 21 C museum hotels in cities such as Durham, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Cincinnati, and most of them are adaptive reuse projects, reimagining all buildings to be in this case, a hospitality destination that combines the display of 21st century art, much of which is by living artists, a boutique hotel experience, and a restaurant focused on local cuisine. In fact, more than half our practice is involved in the transformation of old buildings for new uses in adaptive reuse. And from that work, we've learned to develop a very authentic language that is specific to the existing building and to its place. Again, heightening one's experience and understanding of the place. This authentic placemaking is something that comes out of our adaptive reuse work, but we use that way of thinking in our new construction projects as well in all our projects. And I'll refer to some of this as we talked about Princeton.

Atif Qadir 09:44

Excellent. So digging into the new residential colleges. As I mentioned, my parents don't live very far away. And we actually record very close to the university as well record this podcast at the Michael Graves. So I can gush about how epically do It'll fall the town is and the university is. But rather than hear from me, I want to hear from you and let our listeners understand what is so particularly unique and special about the place and the site that you have had the opportunity to design it.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 10:16

It is a beautiful campus. It's stunning. In fact, its garden setting is so beautiful that it's described as an arboretum. Our site has on one of its sides, an area of woodland, and this is special, there aren't very many wooded places left on campus. It's also just south, one of the main recreation fields on campus called pole field. But to understand this particular site in context, let me explain that the new residential colleges are the first step in the university's 10 year campus, which includes expanding across Lake Carnaby. So today, the site sits on the edge of campus. But as the campus grows southward, its situation will become much more in the heart of campus. And so we tried to anticipate how students and faculty move to the campus today and tomorrow, how they might traverse the site, how it can really become part of that connective tissue of the campus.

Atif Qadir 11:24

And that's the idea of this long term trajectory, not just building for today, but literally in the case of an institution like university building for generations to come.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 11:36

That's right. I mean, these buildings will be there for a long period of time. I sure hope so. Yeah. And becomes part of the campus fabric. So making decisions need to be both deliberate and very forward looking. And I think we've done a good job of analyzing the languages of movement, for instance, on the existing campus, and being sure to in some cases, continue them in some cases, improve them for thinking when it

Atif Qadir 12:11

so I think for was due to understand how particularly unique designing a residential college at Princeton is despite I mean, in addition to the locational aspects that you describe, it's very important understand the residential college system at Princeton, as well as the eating clubs. Could you understand, explain rather, what that system is for undergraduates also compare what that system is for graduates.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 12:36

I will say that because of my experience with this project, I'm more familiar with undergraduate life. So let me speak to that. The residential college system is meant to provide students with the community they feel they belong to, and a sense of identity associated with that community. So you might meet a proud Princetonian. And the first thing they might say is I went to Princeton. And the second thing you might say is I went to forms College, which is one of the current residential colleges. And what that does is it values community, and it values a sense of belonging to that community. The residential colleges that we are designing are actually four year colleges, and meaning that they will have students from first year all the way to fourth year, many of the residential colleges currently are two years.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 13:31

And then there is an upper class tradition to join eating clubs. Eating clubs are not quite akin to fraternities, eating clubs are instead more of a combination of dining halls and social halls, social clubs, but have to get through a selection process to be part of them. So this is, as a sophomore, you go through the selection process to be part of them as a very unfortunate student. And that selection process, which is called Victor is, of course, in the term selection itself, an exclusive process. Some of you will get in some of you will. And there is then also built in a feeling of some can be there, some can't be there, you may not get the one that you choose. And Princeton is aware of this and it's part of the reason why these residential colleges are offering a four year option. It's so that optionality is provided.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 14:40

And I think choice is something is very important to students, and is very important to all people. Choice in, you know, what is your community? What is your dining experience, and it shouldn't assume that one size fits all. And so in our residential colleges We will have accommodations for third and fourth year students. And in fact, we have to think a little bit about how do you compete with the even clubs? How do you make sure the third and fourth year students want to live in these residential college.

Atif Qadir 15:14

So it's not like the sad alternate version. Not exactly,

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 15:18

it shouldn't be the ultimate version. And so we thought a lot about, and we call this giving them a capstone experience, what is the capstone experience for third year and fourth year students. And in designing the residence halls, we put rooms for third and fourth year students often singles in a way that they were arranged in a group with open space, a social space between them so that they could be a virtual space, giving them the combination of privacy and community that they might see. We also put them at the end of each of these governments, where they might have something that is specific and interesting that the architecture can offer. And that could be special windows, or that could be great.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 16:11

You know, if you think about a great living experience you might have had and an old building may have been, alright, me and my three Junior roommates are in this attic space in an old building, and boy, was that a cool space. And that's a capstone experience. So we try to recreate that kind of specific specialness in these rooms at the ends of the bars so that we can offer an experience that is special and does attract the third and fourth grade students. As I said, the eating clubs are part dining hall, part Social Club. And so in providing dining alternatives, we also have associated with the third year fourth experiences kitchens, so that they can do some of them cooking. And on campus, this will be another options that are coops, for instance, that students are part of that they can make their meals and together and find a sense of community. So now this is another option and a constellation of options, giving third and fourth year students choice in the community that they want to be.

Atif Qadir 17:22

Okay. And then in the context of that, because you'd mentioned that the client, the university was aware of some of the challenges that come with the upper class system that you mentioned that you didn't clubs, what was the specific project brief that the university gave you at the outset? And then how did you go about preparing their design response.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 17:45

So Princeton is have found them to be very thoughtful and sophisticated and thinking about residential life. And they gave us a very nice brief, they came to us with a value proposition that was set well developed set of fundamental objectives that they hope to achieve. They wanted the residential colleges, to enhance student wellbeing, to integrate living environment, and to foster a sense of community and responsibility. We then start our process. And we always start our process with careful listening. And we listen to the experience and ambitions of students and administrators. And we made out with some unexpected discoveries along the way, we then go into a process that translates this into architecture.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 18:40

And so we design the buildings to integrate them inside and the outside connecting the colleges, to the site and the landscape. And our design sought to build community around hallways, we realized quite early on that hallways, partners are in fact, in ResLife, a real asset. We designed a way that the doors in the residence rooms could be held open by students if they desire and took a very simple tact. They put doors across from doors. So one set of permits could have an open door to the hallway, open to another door, which might be open to another set of permits. And so you can kind of imagine a cacophony of yelling across the hallway. I'm sharing music away. And that is the first building block.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 19:38

And so we thought about home hallways as an asset an opportunity and the first of concentric rings of community that starting there moving outwards. We also design spaces to be visible, to be interconnected to have views out to the campus so that You build in an awareness of each other, a sense of place in your surroundings, in your community and in your region and beyond, to instill a sense of responsibility and responsibility we all have to each other to give visibility to each other. So you have that feeling of responsibility.

Atif Qadir 20:20

Okay, so we've talked about the the building blocks of this amazing project and understand it's two buildings. So tell us a bit more about the numbers that are associated this number of beds, square footage, so our listeners are starting to get a vision of what the large scale of this project.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 20:36

Yeah, it's actually eight buildings. But let me explain, since two residential colleges on 12 acres, and each college will house 500 students, so 1000, in total, they each have their own dining hall, but with a shared server in Infigen. And the project in total is about 500,000 square feet, there is a 20 foot grid change from the top of the site to the bottom of the site. And in that we saw a real sectional opportunity redesigned a continuous base that would hold a lot of the college programs, college programs and things that are more University public facing things like common rooms, college offices, the dining rooms, they all sit within the space. And on top of that base, since eight residence halls, and each of these residence halls have individual floors that hold about 20 or so students, and each of the residence floors. There's also a living room space, that's really key, because that is the living room for that.

Atif Qadir 21:51

And that essentially becomes the the time thread for all of the buildings themselves that essentially are the same level that it's snows for example, in New Jersey now before occasionally than previously before. But is that also an opportunity to be able to travel between the both buildings without having to necessarily put on heavy coats and boots?

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 22:12

Yep, that's exactly right. We learned this from the students during that listening period, that it was not really convenient, not really conducive, to building friendships, to hanging out with each other. And we did learn during programming during listening, that students have different modes of studying, including, you know, this singular concentrated study, you might do this in a room, you might do this in a library, you might do this, honestly, in a dining hall, where there is background noise, if that suits you.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 22:46

But there's also a different mode of studying called social study. And so to acknowledge that there are different ways of studying and that there is a need to socialize, we didn't build an interior and continuous path through this podium in this program is an opportunity so that a student does not need to put on their coat and their boots to get from one part of the building to the other part of the building to go see a friend group whether to study or just to hang out. And this was something that was important to the students and the podium allowed us to.

Atif Qadir 23:25

So the core of Princeton's campus is in collegiate Gothic style similar to UPenn, Yale, and for example, Duke University, many others that use that particular style, which is incredibly iconic. There are a next generation of buildings at Princeton that integrate a wide set of different architectural styles and material palettes. Could you talk to us about what you see as the the visible materials that someone would be looking at feeling or touching as you're walking through these new buildings?

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 23:58

So we designed these buildings, I'll start by saying we designed these buildings to be contemporary. And Princeton was founded in 1764. It has a real, historic and intellectual underpinning, that gives the institution place, depth and context. And we saw an opportunity there to consider how a place that was built for people 200 300 years ago could also be built for you today. How do you demonstrate why do you evidence change? And how do you speak to relate to this contemporary generation of students? And so deliberately, these buildings are designed in a contemporary style, rather than mimicking deal. The other thing you'll see as you approach these buildings is a transparent base. And you know, this may not seem revolutionary on its own. But many of the historic buildings on campus do take stone all the way down to the ground.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 25:08

But unfortunate sides all the way you can't see them. And if you might see, and you can't know what's happening inside to know that you want to go participate to be part of that. And so as you approach these buildings, what you see is a transparent base with visibility in, let's say, at the first college into a common room, and you can decide I want to join this friend group or not, and or you can decide I want to go in and sit near them, but not participate, which is also something that students say that they wanted the opportunity to do, to not always jump in, but be able to observe before you jump. The buildings themselves are designed with a warm breath.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 25:55

And that one breath takes the tones and the wall of the shifts that you see on the historic buildings. So when you view the buildings, and now you can muster the brick is up when you view the buildings from, let's say, the other side of the field. And you can see it in context, with historic buildings you do see between the use of a material that is very sympathetic to the historic fabric, and also roofline that we designed that is picture s, that varies against the sky, just as the historic buildings gap between the two of you see a sympathetic language, even though one is contemporary and

Atif Qadir 26:37

historic. A key feature of the plan that you describe a 10 year plan is the growth of the student body at Princeton. Talk to us more about who goes to Princeton now, and we'll be going in the future.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 26:52

Right. So the impetus for this project, to build two new residential colleges from Princeton side was just support Princeton's expansion of their undergraduate population, which they are going to increase the diversity of our student body broadening access to the education that they offer. From this institutional objective, we took our charge to be how do you design residential colleges to welcome and accommodate the experience of all students to design it in a way that you never leave, or students saying or feeling I'm here with this is somebody else's Princeton, but instead that this place, says that it was designed for, for me to that it's my Princeton as well. I think you and I, and perhaps many of the listeners, have had experiences where you don't feel welcome. We feel like an outsider, you don't feel like you belong. So to me, and to our firm, this was very important to think through this and really try to deliver on it.

Atif Qadir 27:59

I think what you're describing is very emotionally resonant for me, in particular, because what you're describing was exactly my own experience. When I arrived, for instance, campus for admin weekend, that's the weekend that after they've given admissions offers, for those that are choosing considering to come, one of the first feelings that I had was looking at the minivan that my family came in, to the university with compared to the stunningly beautiful foreign cars that were parked in a parking lot. And I mean, just looking at the way I look, the way I dressed, etc. It just felt so out of sync with everything that was there. And I think it wasn't particularly anything that anyone had said or anything that was expressed that made me feel that way.

Atif Qadir 28:44

But I think particularly the things that you are describing, in terms of the very subtle strategies of how buildings can evoke a sense of place for everybody is so powerful, because I think that can prevent perhaps a next generation of students from psyching themselves out of going to a place as wonderful and transformational as Princeton. And I think it takes a truly special architect to understand that there are many ways of saying things. And oftentimes it's not the words that are important. It's the physical objects that can count

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 29:19

Princeton is undertaking a number of initiatives to think about the same problem and that goes in the built environment, I will say to, you know, that goes from everything from thinking about Wayfinding do you need to arrive at a campus and feel lost? Or can you have good wayfinding so, you feel a sense of autonomy and you feel that you you can belong to this campus in short order, rather than having to learn it over the course of a year. Then in terms of architecture, I know architecture can only do so much, but as much as architecture can put that signals and cues for exclusion, it can send signals and cues for law. And so doing what we can with architecture, nudging perceptions, nudging behavior, it's all worth doing.

Atif Qadir 30:14

So I think tied to that mental health is particularly a challenge for students during the pandemic. And we've seen that talked about in the news very frequently over the past few years. Could you talk about some of the issues that are related to that, particularly for international students for whom the this might be their first experience in the United States experiencing tons of change, how the design of a building can help accommodate and make some of those transitions easier for folks. And I think we, we talked a lot about that earlier, in terms of the the layouts of rooms, but other other things that you consider beyond that as well,

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 30:52

very early on, we thought a lot about loneliness. Loneliness is, is something again, I fully understand that architecture cannot solve on its own. But we did choreograph the way students will make their way to their rooms, to follow a path that would take them past other students, to give them the opportunity to join a friend group, or similarly make the choice not to if they don't feel like it, but that the opportunity to socialize is offered to them. You know, we design that interior network of ways to get from one place to the other without putting your shoes and boots on, for instance, that's all part of that. It's an offer, it's a social offer, you have the opportunity to go be with other people. And we created various scales of spaces for groups together.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 31:45

But we also created spaces for solitude and respite. And I think this is important to acknowledge that you need sometimes alone time, and time for reflection or time to withdrawal. Students work very hard, and they can get super stressful. And having a quiet place to take a breather is also key. And the last thing we did, I would say is to create moments where they could see and experience the beauty of nature, to help them snap out of their day to day to give them a sense that they are part of something bigger, to give them maybe a moment, a sense of perspective, I hope. And I think that's healthy, too.

Atif Qadir 32:32

So the experience of designing a project involves many different types of designers. And we got to talk a little bit about that earlier about how oftentimes, in the design process, the United States, those experiences are really siloed. But there was a number of other firms that you worked with on this project that added additional layers to the design, such as artwork, could you talk about those other folks that are part of this design process and how their work and their selections played a part in the larger hole?

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 33:06

Yeah, we work as I mentioned, with many talented talented people, one in particular I'd like to highlight is the work of a creative Paul, Stephen Doyle and his firm Doyle partners. They helped us work with us to come up with a series of interventions, things that will give the students that moment of pause of connection rather than maybe a moment of wonderment. For instance, for example, in 16, scattered locations, we will install a prism to a window in a hallway or a namespace. And at some point, if you're in one of these spaces during the day, the prison will cast a rainbow on the floor or maybe even on the book.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 33:53

And our hope is that this will make you smile. Maybe this will make you have a moment. And you may not come across one of these prisons on your first week, you may not come across it even in your first month. But you will discover it over time. And maybe you'll tell a fellow student, and you know, something of this place that isn't widely known is known to you. And that sense of discovery, we think and also see.

Atif Qadir 34:22

There's something that reminded me of is Paul Lewis, who's a professor at Princeton is doing the design of a new dormitory at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. And he mentioned that the treatment of the brick facade in that particular case, they opted for very unique, very beautiful corbels at each of the windows, which are actually different location by location when you look across the facade of the building. And those serve to bring different qualities of light and shadow that shift during the day that allow for this idea of wonder and change, which is actually kind of I think it's kind of cool to think about that. because that means that as a designer, you are so observant, and so willing to open your mind to think about what that experience is of someone, not just in a momentary sort of like a temporal way.

Atif Qadir 35:14

But over the course of time over the course of a semester a year, what could that experience be like, that's very symbolic, I think of the type of work that you do and the type of work that your firm does, I would love to hear from you now that you have done a good amount of the design process for the Princeton project to how you place this project in the larger portfolio of work that you've done at Deborah Burke, both previously, and the projects that are perhaps coming down the pike, the the core ideas that you feel are part of the strategy you'll deploy in the future, and tied to your past projects on dormitory projects, residential projects.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 35:53

So almost all our residential life projects really do center around community. So we think a lot about inviting students to engage with one another. And we give visibility to social spaces interconnectedness between spaces. And we design the spaces to be a low open ended to be what we call non prescriptive, so that students can, you know, decide how they want to use the space, even maybe move the furniture, and feel that sense of urgency so that they feel a sense of ownership over the space that then translates to belonging. We design spaces for people to come together and for solitude. And sometimes we think, also about our interior design, in a way to think about how it can relate to many people, sometimes being deliberately eclectic, or deliberately relating to a place in a very authentic way.

Arthi Krishnamoorthy 36:56

So that it's again, stylistic in one way, and say, a Western canon, lux canon. But that is eclectic, in a purposeful way, authentic in a purposeful way, that it can relate to many, many people. And I think that's what is important to us in our future work. And that's what has always driven us is going back to designing buildings, to relate and to resonate with people. So that maybe they say, Gee, I love it. And they may not say it, you know, the minute they walk in, but that they find something that resonates, and they feel more connected to that place.

Atif Qadir 37:38

That's a wonderful, wonderful ethos. And I think that's a terrific place for us to wrap up as well.

Atif Qadir 37:49

Thanks for joining me today on American building. If you enjoyed this episode, and want to hear more, and subscribe on your favorite listening app, and don't forget to rate and review and friends. I've teamed up with writers for the New York Times and well magazine, the launch a digital media platform to tell the fascinating stories of the impact developers and capital providers I work with at commonplace. Check it out@commonplace.us