Our firm was charged with developing a program and implementing an interactive schematic design process for this 592 bed, dormitory style student housing project. The resultant LEED Gold project incorporates 30% water and energy savings along with storm water detention and treatment, natural ventilation, recycled materials and on-site renewable energy. Our firm provided site massing studies and constructability value analyses followed by an area-wide site planning effort that organizes existing and future housing projects on the UC Davis campus.

The LEED Gold project beat Title 24 by more than 32% and incorporates 30% water and energy savings, along with on-site renewable energy.

The project creates community at ascending levels, accommodating differing comfort levels while allowing for varying levels of resident interaction. Plans encourage social engagement, balancing accessibility and safety with the need for solitude. Common spaces are carefully located with spatial visibility as a goal: a place to see and to be seen while contributing to a greater sense of community. In this way, students are able to establish a sense of ownership, taking care of their ‘home’ while being engaged with their surroundings.

Floor plans from the University’s recent housing projects were analyzed as a way of developing prototypical clusters of student rooms, serving as building blocks for floor configuration and amenity layout. Window seats reinforce hallways as gathering spaces, defining each cluster while working in concert with the building’s passive ventilation system. Hallways end in vistas to the campus community, providing an open, airy feel to corridors and connection to the campus at large.

• New cluster design with window seats
• Sustainable site drainage‚ percolation swales, pervious concrete
• Motion detector ramp up/dim down Hallway lighting
• Natural ventilation system using stair towers to circulate air
• Beat Title 24 by more than 32%
• Daylight harvesting
• Natural ventilation system
• Solar water heating