DePauw University First-Year Residence Hall
arcDESIGN, working with Mackey Mitchell Architects of St. Louis, created a campus-wide student housing masterplan that provides guiding principles for creating an exceptional living experience for all residents at DePauw University. The masterplan is a comprehensive look at all student housing needs from first-year to seniors, as well as staff housing and mixed-use developments that will further connect downtown Greencastle to campus. In addition to housing master planning, the project helped define DePauw’s approach to campus sustainability.
The First-Year Student Residence Hall is the first project to be implemented from the new masterplan. The project focuses on the student experience and caters to the needs of incoming first-year students with a neighborhood and community vision. Featuring pod-style communities, the residence hall offers floor lounges connected by a central stair, a bright and inviting ground floor lounge, a community kitchen and meditation room. The top three floors will contain students’ rooms with 154 student beds, most of them in double rooms.
Some of the sustainability-driven design features include solar thermal panels, electronically tintable smart glass, an occupancy sensor in each room to save energy and operable windows for natural ventilation.