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Survey Procedure: After walk-throughs with administration, observation, and interviews with 25 students and a group of custodians, the following list of 96 total issues was assembled as a survey for the entire residence hall. The instructions on the survey asked the residents to first read each issue, indicating its importance on a scale of 1 to 3 (1=very important, 2=moderately important, 3=not really important). Once students had indicated their importance for each of the 96 issues, the final task was for them to consider only the ones marked with "1" across the entire survey, ranking their choice for the top ten with numbers from 10 -1 ("10" being the highest). The figures below represent the women's and men's averages for each issue. Women are generally more concerned about the physical setting then men, in that for the majority of issues women's averages will be lower than men's. Exceptions to this pattern do of course occur. In terms of the overall top 10 most important issues across all scales and categories of experience, the figure given below is the simple sum of top 10 points for each issue. Fifty-four students completed the survey.
Interpretative comments for all issues: Rooms/Corridor: Visual & Non-Visual Aesthetics 4. Unwelcome noise other than someone else's music: Hearing plumbing noises from walls shared with bathrooms seems to be viewed as something which should have been alleviated by design. This kind of inherent "building noise" will probably be perceived more negatively because there is nothing one can do about it. Unreasonable voice and music noise, on the other hand, is usually controlled by conventional signs between neighbors. Many noises which interviewees and survey informants say bother them may be beyond mitigation by the physical form of the architecture. The frequent fire and door alarms are a big issue and perhaps should not have been included in the survey. While street and parking lot noise to adjacent rooms might conceptually be an architectural issue, the location of the project in a relatively urban site makes much of this noise inevitable. 9. Size and positioning of room windows: The strong preference for natural light in the room indicated by the top ten numbers of the survey seems related to the frequent concern for lighting generally, including the artificial, for other, non-aesthetic purposes as well. The typical La Paz window may be somewhat smaller than a residential hall norm? A few extreme situations do exist where the unusual configuration of room in relation to outside spaces has left some with clearly less natural light than desired by the occupants. 10. Qualities of the corridors: Certainly from an "expert" architectural evaluation, many of the corridors seem to lack adequate natural and artificial lighting in the daytime, as well as other sources of purely visual interest. We recall that most social events in the wing corridors happens in the evening. Yet in neither the interviews nor the survey, was there any strong resident agreement with such an outsider's opinion. This lack of aesthetic concern for the corridor or a sequence through it corresponds with a similar lack of enthusiasm, with some exceptions, for particularly "scenic" routes through La Paz generally--this in spite the probability that architects would give La Paz very high marks for these kinds of things. Women's apparent ability to distinguish male wings by smell, aside from cologne/perfume differences, is certainly interesting and has current corollaries in biological research (preferencing a good genetic match for a partner). But is this an architectural issue, aside from one interviewee's suggestion to put all males on outside accessed wings?
Rooms/Corridor: Task Performance 11. Studying in your room: The several reports of poor lighting may in part be related to the lack of space for traditional studying at a desk with computers and often other appliances on it. The larger issue, a difficult architectural one, really has to do with the paradox of wanting to create a less intense ambient or background lighting, while at the same time needing to accommodate lighting of tasks which can occur in virtually any part of the room. Studying will occur also on beds and floor; dressing and clothes storage requires good light; food preparation usually has similar requirements and will occur in various parts of the space; music selection and even socializing may also want a more focused illumination in equally diverse locations. 13. Fixing food in your room: While most residents prepare food and eat relatively often in their rooms, few complaints appeared about either the preparation of food, not having a table or other designated place to eat, not having designated storage or counterspace, or washing dishes in either the bathrooms or central kitchens. Yet washing dishes in the shallow washbasins in the bathrooms may at times contribute to standing water on the countertops. While the survey question about having a kitchen in your corridor was primarily a social issue, its lack of importance may reinforce the relative indifference many residents seem to have about the lack of typical task conveniences associated with food preparation. Even the apparent problem of keeping a lot of garbage from disposable food services and the like--in essentially a very small, shared bedroom--does not seem to be of great concern. 15. Having enough space, outlets for electronic equipment: Given the intensity of room use in this or probably most other residential halls, many of the issues must be treated as very architecturally important: storage space for clothes (especially for women), electrical outlets, desk space besides computer, and shelf space. 16. Arranging things in your room to work better: Residents don't very often like the option of bunking which works against being able store things under raised non-bunked beds. The location of Ethernet jacks, windows, furred ceilings and unusual wall configurations are of course major considerations in the ability to rearrange furniture. One has the impression that the issue of larger or smaller floor space (in the many different room varieties) has much more to do with the physical accommodation of group social activities, the perception of crowding between roommates, or simple status comparisons, than the desire to make daily room tasks per se more functional. This may be because even with a larger room, the basic furnishings will still be about the same. 17. Hearing noise which interferes with work or sleeping: The viewer is encouraged to review the discussion about noise in the section on aesthetics. While a more detailed investigation might be able to specifically identify that noise which interferes with relaxing and that which keeps one from studying or sleeping, for the present we assume that other people's music, socializing, street sounds, alarms, plumbing and the like are potentially of concern for both issues. 18. Locking the room door when going out to the bathroom: Residents are encouraged to lock their doors whenever away from their room, yet most often, depending on floor and length of time in bathroom, the dead bolts will be left open keeping the door slightly ajar. This is probably not the intended design function of the dead bolts and together with having to lock your "front door" every time you use the bathroom represents a certain negative task experience.
Rooms/Corridor: Social Territories 23. Socializing and watching TV with friends: Not only is the room a music chamber, office, bedroom and kitchenette, but unquestionably a living/dining room as well. Clearly the focal place to socialize is someone's room where groups of friends will talk, watch TV, eat, play games and generally hang out. Being able to keep one's door open as an invitation to friendship, and having enough room space for numbers of friends are both important. This appears to be consistent with the typical North American pattern of using the home--inviting friends over--as the primary social venue. Thus one would suspect that on campuses as well the locus of most social (friendship groups) activities will be in the hall room or apartment, rather than in public spaces like restaurants, multipurpose rooms and the like. We will allude in other sections to a possible distinction between friendship groups and perhaps less significant institutionalized socialization, which will tend to occur in non-private domains. 27. Watching TV by yourself: The likelihood that most rooms will have their own TVs may allow group socialization to be vicariously extended to situations where a resident is watching while alone in the room. Additionally, students report eating and studying while watching TV alone. Music may play a similar role of creating a social climate for individuals while alone in the room. The fact that most residents do not have to leave their room for food, TV or music--all with strong social possibilities--obviously diminishes the potential social usefulness of other spaces in the building or on campus. 28. Marking your territory in a shared room: In addition to all the other uses for the room, it often will provide a territorial marking for each of the two roommates. While in most cases this appears not to be extreme, either in physical manifestation or behavioral consequences, it nevertheless is undoubtedly one dimension of discussions between roommates when arranging furnishings in the room. The present evaluation has not the detail to suggest if some room shapes are more conducive to marking territories than others. 32. Hanging out with friends in your corridor and feeling a part of your wing: Only a few of the 19 La Paz wing corridors have developed traditions of keeping numbers of doors open, thus encouraging more spontaneous friendship relationships between neighbors. Not unlike suburban socialization, much of the hanging out in rooms may not be that spontaneous, i.e. generated by walking by an open door. More likely, it will be destination generated by one or more friends going over to some room or making a phone call with the specific intention of getting together. Certainly some of the lack of spontaneity may be due to the much discussed isolation of most La Paz wings, but the pattern is quite consistent with friendship maintenance in the larger society. The interviewees from the Courses in Common wing provided a good opportunity to explore the degree to which a corridor might attempt to compete with the room as the primary social space. These residents have a dimension of "institution" developed through their common academic experiences, goals and perhaps other values. Four and sometimes five of them are possibly the only group in La Paz who daily prepare meals and eat together in a common (non-room) space. Thus one might expect this more institutionalized group structure to be competitive with the potentially group disruptive activities of smaller numbers of friends doing things more privately in their own rooms (see Doxtater 1994 for comparable phenomena in office organization). This, however, appears not to be the case. When a group hanging out in the Courses in Common corridor discovers that one of their rooms is available, they will move! Perhaps we should view the corridor not as a distinct social space itself, but primarily as an overflow area in relation to the rooms, especially when someone in the room needs to study or sleep. For the most part La Paz corridors are, perhaps appropriately, not designed as primary socialization spaces. While residents do talk occasionally about having a place to sit or other minimum amenities for when things do move into the corridor, there is little strong support in the survey questions toward any greater definition as primary group social space. In this vein, we also understand the general non-use of most small patios, Iwans or terraces positioned immediately adjacent to wing corridors. 33. Feeling uncomfortable with strangers in your corridor: Given the relatively short distance between some of the opposing windows of courtyards, one would initially suspect privacy problems in this regard. Yet neither residents nor administrators report much of an important issue here. Perhaps related to an overall comfort in mixing genders in corridors and the like, residents simply use the blinds several times a day. One possible side effect may be the impression some residents receive at night when walking through the pathways and courtyards. With many of the blinds closed, there is at least the perception, if not actual reality, of somewhat minimally lit spaces not being territorially safe, i.e. surveyed by their occupants. This issue was given some weight in the survey top ten ranking. A corollary to the possibility of a more institutionalized (vs. spontaneous friendship formed) wing social group may be the influence of access by non-wing "members". In many residential halls, mostly in Europe but also in the U.S. as well, the entry into a "wing" (some small number of residents, 20 or so) will be either symbolically distinct (not unlike gated communities) or even specially keyed for occupants only. While some of La Paz' wings obtain a certain de facto definition or control in this respect, most are conceptually part of some overall all urban-like system of relatively autonomous pathways. The extensive discussion about the "maze" reputation of the building may suggest that beyond actual wayfinding functions themselves, users might be responding as well to the relatively undefined social character of wings. Residents have complained about the location of stairs and exterior exits promoting the flow of "strangers" through one's wing. Since corridors with active open door atmospheres are relatively few and then primarily in the evening hours after 9 or so, there will be little natural territorial surveillance of "non-members" during most times when residents are themselves sparsely coming and going to the bathrooms and exits. The overall social pattern of wings in La Paz is discussed as well in the section on public spaces. 35. Living in a mixed or separate gender wing: The ability of residents to choose to live in a gender separate or gender integrated wing seems to make sense given the likelihood that some women (perhaps more than men) will prefer not to have to use corridors to bathrooms with men. For others it may be an issue at first but then recedes in significance. 36. Impact of different shapes of corridors: The "L" shaped 3SL all-male wing is quite active at the intersection, while in the most active Courses in Common wing is also "L" shaped. Here, however, the outside portion of the wing is male and the inside female. Most corridor activity occurs in two locations, at the women's bathroom farthest away from the men, and at the intersection of the two portions and genders of the wing. But active wings are not restricted to the "L" shape, since one of the most active is the traditional straight corridor of the second floor middle wing, 2EL. Furthermore, even the back ABCD wings of the first floor, segmented into very distinct male/female sections accessible only by going outside, also may develop open door spontaneity. Yet in this latter case, residents in the east and west appendages to the straight corridor portions are probably correct in sensing a diminished ability to participate in such spontaneity. 37. Having guests stay over in your room: It is not unheard of for a roommate's boy or girl friend to spend considerable time in the room, whether an evening or even days. Most people just go to some friend's room or elsewhere in La Paz or on campus. While it may be architecturally impossible to provide privacy for a couple while the odd roommate is in the space, which does happen, other solutions might be necessary in a future of even greater sexual freedom or spontaneity. Congregate and co-housing, for example may have guest accommodations for overnight or weekend visitors.
Rooms/Corridors: Cultural Expression 38. Making a good first impression on friends and relatives: Like that desired of any single family dwelling or apartment, residents think their La Paz rooms make a good first impression on friends and relatives. As a form of social status sign, much of an "abode's" visual appearance will be dependent upon aspects other than recognition of a particular style, or even perhaps the setting's inherent visual or non-visual aesthetics. In the case of these hall rooms, it may be more important that the place be new, clean, of good quality furnishings, and reflective of individual personalities, particularly when relatives or new friends come to visit. For close friends, who may use the room often for socializing, these status signs (with the exception of personalization perhaps) may be less important 39. Personalizing your room or corridor: From the images of student rooms, one is most struck by the amount of personalization which occurs on walls, shelves, desks, beds and other opportunities for display. According to the literature on hall room personalization, this is a good "sign", since those who don't bother, at least for freshmen, are statistically less likely to succeed in academic endeavors. The amount of discussion about the techniques of actually hanging things on different kinds of wall surfaces, and the weight given the issue in the survey, both suggest an issue very important to hall residents. Thus in addition to all the other things a hall room must do, it also plays a vital role in the expressive or cultural presentation of student identities and experiences at a time in their life when things tend to evolve rather rapidly. Thus, it would seem important for residents to be able to frequently change room personalization. Aspects of music might as well be regarded as a form of socially expressive auditory symbolism--meanngs beyond the inherent or more intrinsic meaning of musical pattern. In the case of the physical room setting, it should be obvious from the photos that the socially expressive is more important than any overall design coordination of form, color, material and the like (visual aesthetics). This seems true even though some visual aspects of posters and the like may be purely aesthetic without social content. Like any space layered with other kinds of activities (task performance, social territoriality, and cultural expression), it may be difficult for the visually aesthetic to dominate. Aside from a purely informational bulletin board speaking about health issues and the like for young students, the corridors contain little if any personalization or expression specific to the local wing group or even greater La Paz (the mostly female personalization of "door decs" (door decorations) is naturally individual not communal). This lack of thematic or metaphoric content in a space was tested in several of the survey questions. At least in the resident's view, there is strong agreement between user and existing design. Little is desired in the way of cultural, expressive and socially more institutionalized meaning in the La Paz corridor pathways. 41. Celebrating special events in your room: Some residents will decorate their rooms at holidays, much like home owners. The expression here seems to speak about common cultural values and experiences held with some larger society or social subgroup. Architecturally, the windows and doors of the La Paz rooms may be the more frequent location of such decorations. Birthdays as well are celebrated by some, speaking perhaps to some more "familial" set of cultural patterns. Like other social events in the rooms, these do not appear to be any more problematic in respect to the existing layout and furnishings, with the possible exception of accommodating occasional larger numbers of participants. 42. Differences between men's and women's wings: When asked about being able to tell the difference between men's and women's wings, many interviewees recounted women's tendencies to permanently personalize their doors on the exterior, corridor exposure. These are after all possible conceptual equivalents to the facades of single family and other individual dwellings. Do young women today still possess a markedly greater propensity to personalize or otherwise present the facade of their home environment?
Bathrooms: Visual & Non-Visual Aesthetics 43. Pleasing or displeasing light, color and/or composition of form: Because of the comparative lack of personalization by residents (except for RAs), bathrooms may be greater candidates for purely visual and non-visual aesthetics, though most often institutional facilities are designed primarily in terms of task performance issues (both from users and custodians). They are the most intensely used space after rooms themselves. The materials and colors of the La Paz bathrooms are well regarded for the most part by residents. It is difficult to determine presently if occasional requests for better lighting comes from visual aesthetic or task performance (cleaning the body) desires. The overall absence, with a few exceptions, of natural lighting and operable windows in the bathrooms did not arise in discussions with interviewees. 46. Comfortable or uncomfortable temperatures: For one interviewee who had lived on an outside accessed, single loaded corridor, having to walk outside in cold weather to get back and forth to the bathroom and shower was a major reason for moving. These rooms, however, may have compensating positive attributes in other behavioral categories, which can also only be associated with their unusual architectural design.
Bathrooms: Task Performance 48. Using the shower stalls: In both portions of the survey, as well as in the interviews, functional issues in the bathrooms were quite important to the users. The size of shower stalls, places to put "caddies", standing water on bathroom floors, having enough clothes hooks close enough, and task lighting were at times problematic in the building. The question of whether on not women who brought in stools to set caddies on also used them to shave their legs is presently unanswered. Many women are used to shaving legs while standing and will avoid sitting on stools and benches in bathrooms for hygienic reasons. Since people are always wearing flip-flops in the showers, the likelihood of slipping while shaving on one leg may be remote. Certainly in other age groups, some individuals would not physically be able to manage the necessary contortion required in this task, and would have to sit. Women, at least, will typically make two trips to the bathroom when showering and washing hair. The first with the caddie with shower items, the second with things needed to blow-dry hair and put on make-up at the sink/mirrors. 50. Using the sinks and mirrors: As one can imagine with the intensity of use, keeping sinks and countertops clean and dry is probably a universal problem in residential halls, not just La Paz. At least two of the students wrote in additional comments about this issue on the surveys, complete with lots of underlines and exclamation points. This concern shows up as the highest of any bathroom task in the survey. It is probably the case that design decisions were made to optimize visual aesthetics and minimize cultural expressions of "institutionality" by not installing a sink whose surface is continuous with the countertops. The present solution may be more typical in residential settings compared to more functional continuous surface sinks in high volume restrooms. Some people complain about the difficulty of washing and brushing teeth with faucets that shut off automatically. In addition to these tasks, people will of course blow-dry hair, shave, apply make-up and generally groom one's appearance. We have at least one report of a woman who customarily sat on the countertop when putting on make-up. Since this was second hand information, it is not known if the reason was the length of time some women spend daily in this activity, or whether she needed to be closer to the mirror (not commented on elsewhere). And as mentioned earlier in the section on rooms, many residents will wash dishes as well as clothes and other items in these sinks. 51. Dressing: Almost all individuals interviewed said they have at some time or another had to change clothes somewhere in the bathrooms when their room was occupied by friends. Most would use the toilet stalls, often throwing clothes over the stall door, presumably because the number or size of items couldn't be accommodated by hooks where they exist. This did not seem to be any difficult inconvenience in terms of actual use of bathroom furnishings, though some additional design consideration of this activity might be warranted. 52. Finding out information about upcoming events and opportunities: As the most useful location for RAs to post wing information, things are hung not only on bulletin boards, but on bathroom doors, adjacent to mirrors, or anywhere else where the likelihood of being seen is highest. Part expressive issue--in its attempt to influence social organization, beyond purely functional informational value--it may be difficult for planners and designers to predict the amount of space and location which will be appropriated by users for these purposes. Are there different effects of notices posted in "take-over" spaces compared to those put up within the "legitimate" frames of bulletin boards?
Bathrooms: Social Territories 56. Meeting and maintaining contact with friends on your wing: U.S. society places much emphasis on more self-interested control and expressive use of physical settings, whether images of corporate power, resort hotels, clubs, entries to gated residential areas, private residences or residence hall rooms. Friendship formation will often depend less on any culturally uniform, institutional commonality, than on more spontaneous even chance discovery of common interests. Thus not only in La Paz, but in U.S. residential halls generally (according to literature), the place in this building type where you are most likely to meet long term friends is the bathroom, particularly as a freshman. This is simply because this is the place where you "bump" into people the most and are in contact long enough that at least some social exchange will occur. The only exception to this axiom in La Paz seems to be the very active Courses in Common wing where one seems more likely to run into people in one's corridor. A few other wings with open door conventions may also compete favorably with their bathrooms in form of territoriality. Few specific activities in other non-private spaces in La Paz, i.e. most corridors, TV rooms, kitchens, game rooms or lobby have the ability to occasion the same individuals to run into each other often enough that they get to know their potential to be lasting friends. The design and perhaps economic decision to have common bathrooms for 12-14 individuals in La Paz appears to serve this purpose well at these numbers, though perhaps less so in some of the segmented wings where the bathroom number is about 6-7 (limits potential like-interest matches).
Bathrooms: Cultural Expression 58. Personalizing your bathroom: Given its most social status of all the La Paz spaces outside of the private rooms, to what degree does the wing bathroom want to evolve from a spontaneous, chance occasion for friendship matching to a more institutionalized entity expressed more culturally? Where wings are of mixed gender one finds two and sometimes three different bathrooms for the same wing. Even in all male and female wings at least two bathrooms will be available and used alternatively on some occasions by some residents. Thus in terms of architectural form itself, no particular bathroom could be the expressive space for the wing. Certainly the expressive, social intent of a good part of the content hung in bathrooms by RAs can be seen as an effort to socially institutionalize the wing, to a degree. In the case of mixed wings, RAs will decorate all bathrooms. Yet from broader cultural perspectives, bathrooms are associated with very personal as opposed to culturally determined meanings. Most interviewees chuckled when asked about expressive events in bathrooms, even though the shaving of one of the female RA's head seems to be something of a repetitive "cultural" event. Is this a kind of ritual destructuring of a quasi-authority figure, perhaps strengthening the social solidarity of the wing? More architecturally specific, however, is the issue of users putting up rhetorical messages on portions of the building for intended social effect. One can predict that in public spaces such "social advertising" will occur at locations with maximal exposure, whether bathrooms or on the front lobby wall. From the user's social point of view, what portions of their lived in setting do they perceive as appropriate for these purposes? From a visual aesthetic perspective, does ad hoc expressive content diminish the ability to relax or otherwise escape from social information while using the bathrooms or coming and going in larger parts of the setting? And even from a task performance stance, is the gathering of factual information from one's environment in any way impeded by cultural signage.
Public Spaces: Wayfinding 61. Finding your room the first day: La Paz' reputation as a "maze" amounts to a kind of user folklore about difficulties of finding one's way in the building. While wayfinding strategies can vary both individually and cross-culturally, in most cases buildings can universally enable a quicker and clearer cognitive structuring by either the perceptual layout of architectural form itself, and/or signage systems. In the first instance, both administrators and residents are aware of the up to six seemingly distinct and unrelated segments of building form. Most dramatic is the difference one experiences going from the two front or west courtyard organizations of rooms, through the middle linear segment of rooms, to the more numerous and different courtyard schemes of the back or east side. Additionally, when trying to construct a map from "visual reckoning" rather than signs, people at times have difficulty understanding which of the ABCD blocks is their destination since all four courtyards and blocks will not be perceived as different by a novice wayfinding. The most common observation by users is the assumption that the back third floor rooms will be connected to third floor front rooms. Two of the key attributes of any maze are the lack of distinguishing internal nodes along the path and the absence of related views and landmarks to a surrounding environment presumably better know to the user. While the pathways in La Paz do very a great deal in layout and detail (unique nodes), the lack of an ability to relate them to larger scale vistas or landmarks either within the building or on the adjacent campus renders these interesting nodes of little value for wayfinding. In regard to signage, before a system of numbering can be useful, some tree-like hierarchy of path names must usually be integrated into destination names or numbers. Some such grid system would of course make a serious and probably inappropriate influence of overall building form. 64. Feeling pleasantly intrigued or uncomfortable about unknown parts of La Paz: For all the folklore about wayfinding in La Paz, the issue clearly either disappears or even becomes a positive attribute with time for many residents. Its priority in the survey and top ten ranking is given some importance, but not as much as one might expect from reputation alone. Nor should we attribute to wayfinding, issues which may be related to the unusual layout of room blocks and courtyards, but not actually to knowing where things are per se. Key examples here are: the perceived quietness for studying and the like in areas of La Paz, cognitively some "path" distance from the few more spontaneous, noisy areas; the social segmentation of wings from each other; and the ability of users to get in and out of the building without going through some central area (either a task performance or a social issue). These possibilities will be commented on in their appropriate section. It might be noted here that in some of the most prominent literature on wayfinding, researchers include "exploration" as part of wayfinding purpose. And some interviewees specifically report such an interest, particularly as initial concern for being lost diminishes, i.e. one understands some overall layout or orientation even if all the specific paths and nodes aren't known. Contrary to the inclusion of exploration in a wayfinding category of behavior, it seems reasonable that once some larger framework is understood, some people will go exploring, not primarily to fill out the locations of missing pieces of the landscape, but more categorically to find other kinds of experience, most likely situations which are visual/non-visual aesthetic, social, or perhaps expressive. 65. Accessible routes: In practice one should distinguish knowing a map of accessible routes through some setting, from the actual task performance behavior of physically negotiating ramps, hallways, doors and the like. Certainly these hopefully facilitating physical features might function as the wayfinding "nodes" for handicapped mapmaking. Yet it remains important to recognize not only that these nodes will be different than the wayfinding nodes an "able" person might incorporate, but so will the way they are structured in the larger setting. In the case of La Paz, while handicapped residents probably come to know their routes much the same way others do, it could happen that some handicapped visitor from outside needs to be shown a route to some destination in the complex setting. It might well be that the non-handicapped resident that comes to show the visitor the way cannot use his or her typical wayfinding structure. Ideally, handicapped wayfinding should coincide as much as possible with more general architectural and signage structuring. Much of La Paz works fairly well in this regard. The exceptions may be: knowing the elevator location for the back wings [in the southeast corner]; knowing that the Luna social areas (kitchen, TV, gameroom) are not accessible from the south of the courtyard; knowing that one cannot pass through the middle block between major east and west halves of the building except in northern passageways; knowing that only the northern rear entrance is accessible. Only the elevator example is not caused by the slope of the site, dropping several feet from north to south.
Public Spaces: Visual & Non-Visual Aesthetics 70. Meditating or relaxing in a quiet space: One of the more interesting behaviors observed in this category is the use of nicely appointed mostly exterior spaces--the Sun Terrace and bridge below, the Iwans, the ABCD second floor patios, Sol courtyard and the interior Oro Blanco and study bridge--for quiet, solitary, relaxing or meditative situations, often associated with some intent to study. This is paradoxical if in fact the reason for most of these spaces was to encourage spontaneous social gathering. It is also somewhat contrary such active expectations that a good component of the attractiveness of these locals may be not so much their visual aesthetic qualities, but their lack of engaging and demanding social contact. Certainly any residence hall with the intensity of room usage, especially in terms of both positive and negative social experience, will need a number of "escape" opportunities for individuals to be alone. Some people can be "alone" in a very busy, yet anonymous, streetscape, while others will seek solitude away from people. 71. Choosing a route through La Paz because of its aesthetic quality: Wayfinding orientation notwithstanding, La Paz' varied, visually interesting detail and volumes would probably be highly preferred by most people experiencing them as an infrequent relaxing or purely aesthetic experience. Certainly compared to rooms, bathrooms and other spaces used more intensively for other kinds of situational experience, the larger layout of La Paz has greater potential for this particular category. For the majority of residents, at the majority of times most of the larger setting may not have much important task performance, social, cultural or even after time wayfinding meaning. It may even be that the planners sensed the general lack of environmental importance beyond the room, bathroom and less frequently corridor, and made a concerted effort to compensate by providing a comparatively rich visual and non-visual aesthetic. One of the possible problems with this strategy, perhaps elucidated by future research, is the probability that aesthetically rich settings must maintain their sense of novelty, mystery and the like in order to remain actively interesting. Unlike coming and going through La Paz on a daily basis for a year or more, one does not typically visit unique aesthetic environments, such as pocket parks or some art museums, for example, with anywhere near this intensity. Most likely in the case of La Paz, most of the coming and going through the hall is generally without aesthetic content because of this fatigue factor. While many of the interviewees will mention several scenic areas of the setting when prompted to do so, for many others virtually nothing comes to mind. Certainly any initial experience of the setting will be perceived as aesthetically interesting and will tend to merge with clear status meanings of first impressions--to be discussed in that section. We recall that undoubtedly the primary aesthetic for these young people is music, a medium perhaps difficult for multifaceted physical environments to compete with. The surveys as well show a certain indifference to the comparatively rich visual and non-visual aspects of La Paz, with only noise factors and somehow "rich detail" surfacing with some significance for men. It is interesting in retrospect to consider the two interviewees with second floor windows facing out into the upper structures of the front arcade which seem to obstruct the view. One would expect a negative response when asked about views from windows. None came forth, at least from these two. 72. Enjoying or not enjoying the alternating inside and outside spaces: While some purely aesthetic exploration effect may be behind some of the comments, it was mentioned in other parts of this section how exploration probably has more to do with discovering interesting things to do in other categories, especially the social and cultural. Yet it is certainly interesting to climb the stairs adjacent to Sol courtyard, or to walk down some of the screened exterior corridors when the sun is just right. Other routes are markedly less interesting, such as many of the corridors themselves, and perhaps the rear stairs up to the third floor. Such "expert" opinions, however, come from an architect trained to see and respond to such form. More specifically understandable reactions of actual users, however, are the mentioned harshness of going in places from extreme light to extreme dark, or being cold and wet in segments of La Paz' pathways during more extreme climate conditions. 75. Hearing annoying noise: In spite of extensive masonry volumes, unusual, negative, acoustical characteristics are not commonplace. Perhaps this is one reason for smaller window surfaces in the courtyards. Any technical understanding of building effect on radio signals--a problem for some room locations--is unknown to the evaluators. We are also unaware of ways to predict unusual echo situations like that mentioned between the third floor room and a room just below on the second floor of C wing. The two less technical problems mentioned were the loudness of voices and activities in the main lobby (especially if faculty office is being used), and the tendency for noisier very late night activity near the rear entrance Iwans to project up into the ABCD courtyards. The front entrance courtyard, as well as any other court space can reverberate as well with returning partygoers, though apparently most enter from the parking lot. 77. Appreciating the composition of elements in architectural form: A good deal of literature on visual aesthetics, in the landscape fields at least, suggests that people most often clearly prefer natural features to architectural ones. One if the ingredients to this phenomenon seems to be the propensity for most architectural form to carry significant, wayfinding, task performance, and especially social and expressive meaning. Natural form, on the other hand can often be dedicated almost exclusively to aesthetic purposes. Most responses in the interviews include some landscape component, whether the trees in Sol courtyard, or the presence or absence of such in Luna courtyard or the ABCD courtyards, or distant views of mountains or sunsets. How then, does one classify mention of liking a view of the stadium or Tucson's downtown? Do these have more social or cultural meaning, not unlike the negative comments about some of the more immediate buildings on the campus? Nor can we completely associate the positive resident regard for the rich material, detail and color of La Paz' architectural features with more social meanings of newness, quality and the like. If compared in slide comparison tests to images of very ordinary institutional settings, their preference ratings would certainly be much, much higher. It is just difficult to say what these forms actually mean in terms of day to day usage.
Public Spaces: Task Performance 80. Studying in a quiet place: The number of public facilities in relation to the 480 odd residents seems very appropriate. Interviewees were queried about having to wait to use active and quiet study rooms, conference rooms, laundry rooms and kitchen, game and TV rooms and the public restrooms adjacent to the lobby. Virtually all the spaces were positively regarded. The only functional issues mentioned for any of these spaces were related to the kitchens: the absence of side counterspace by kitchen appliances and the refrigerator door opening into the wall in Sol; and the distances of either kitchen from back rooms, especially on upper floors. From the survey, one has indication that residents attach some importance to their study spaces, particularly their distribution through at least front upper portions of the hall. The noisiest study room may be L239 because of its adjacency to one of the most socially active wings in the building. 85. Picking up mail, messages and packages in the lobby: Visibility of the front lobby and entrances from a sitting position behind the desk was mentioned as problematic by two of the students who work there. The height of the counter obscures the view. It also came to light that when residents in wheelchairs have to sign for packages at the counter, it is too high to accommodate the action. The person on duty will probably also have to stand to make eye contact. A person using a wheelchair probably could not perform the front desk job with the present architectural configuration of that workstation. 88. Parking your bicycle in a secure location: Adequate numbers and security of adjacent bicycle racks is a problem for La Paz as well as most other places on campus. The possibility of inside storage is an interesting but certainly problematic architectural issue. 89. Parking your car conveniently close to La Paz: While interviewees who owned cars all discussed the political, economic, and even social realities of parking, any overall evaluation of this issue in its larger context with neighbor halls and other campus facilities is beyond the scope of the present work. 91. Being picked up or dropped off by auto, deliveries: Pickup and drop-off functions were most likely discussed during planning. Some negative situations do occur given the absence of any specific, front La Paz driveway dedicated to these functions. In order to call a resident to let them know their ride is waiting, the driver must leave the car in one of the two active street lanes--sometimes both can be occupied at the same time--and run to the building to call. A certain amount of "misunderstanding" will occur between waiting parked cars and moving street traffic--including the campus police who under most conditions will ticket a parked car without its driver. 94. Bringing groceries or heavy goods in from rear parking lot: The transport of occasional goods, particularly at year's beginning or end, seems to create no really unusual problems, even though this was the primary reason why one interviewee chose a first floor room. On a more daily basis, one wonders where the many residents who do a fair amount of food preparation in their rooms go to by their groceries. Then, assuming that access to a car will be vital to grocery shopping, how does one manage any heavy load if no nearby parking spots are available. Are there cases where residents must temporarily park their cars in back, carry up goods, and then return to park the car some distance away? Is there a designated drop-off parking zone in back where residents will not get ticketed when leaving their car for a short time [perhaps more a parking design than architectural issue]. There are no places to set packages or other objects at carded entries while one fishes around in wallet, pocket or purse looking for the card. 95. Walking safely on wet surfaces: One can get to almost all places in La Paz under cover from rain. Yet we have at least two reported instances of people slipping and falling during rain on the small patios which link the middle blocks to the ABCD wings on the second floor. 96. Having to open and close heavy doors all the time: The constant opening and closing of doors in La Paz' inside/outside pathways is mentioned by residents, administrators and custodians alike as a negative task performance experience. It is even given emphasis by some residents when they chose their top ten most important issues from the 96 of the survey. There can be a considerable noise component to this problem (non-visual) when closer mechanisms do not function properly. 97. Accessibility: All spaces of La Paz are accessible by wheelchair and scooter. Problems of finding handicapped routes and social stigmas for having to take separate routes from more able peers are considered elsewhere in the appropriate category. 101. Custodial storage and distribution: Delivering supplies to main custodial closet on first floor--these must be redistributed to branch closets on other floors before the day is over (to make room for cart storage in main and larger closet). One closet on second floor, four smaller ones on third floor, two each in eastern and western blocks. Closets used for storage and as water source (one of the closets in the western block of third floor doesn't have a sink with water). Cleaning is done from carts: 4 on first floor, 2 on each of the other 2 floors. The six carts correspond to six cleaning "territories" for six staff, and 2 additional custodians who clean common areas and stairwells. Much discussion about a more appropriate distribution of closets…biggest concern is the distance one has to go to wring out mop in water sink, e.g. on first floor only one sink in western block; on second floor only one central closet/sink in western block; on third floor two of the four closets don't have water, but the other two do, one each for the eastern and western blocks. The two conditions which create unequal distance to water are the separate blocks and the courtyard configuration of Sol and Luna groups of rooms. The sizes of the two sets of closets in the western and eastern blocks on the third floor are too small to accommodate all movement inside…suggested to be combined into something more the size of the closets on first and second floors.
Public Spaces: Social Territories 105. Watching people: Like its "hotel" image, activity in La Paz' public spaces is most likely much more due to conscious decisions usually by friends to make the trip down, or to meet there, than to any spontaneous generation of activity of residents dropping in, recognizing others and adding to the group or generally hanging out. While the most spontaneous social spaces in the entire building have already been discussed in the section on bathrooms, the most spontaneous public area is generated by checking mail around the front desk at least once a day. This use of mailboxes to stimulate social interaction is also recommended in the guidelines for various kinds of housing. In the present case, however, the likelihood of running into someone you know, other than the desk person on duty, is relatively low. Even if one could see into the living room, and even kitchen/gameroom spaces more easily as one passes by, there too given the overall light usage by any particular individual of the 480, the chances of making contact with a friend will be low. Of course any frequent usage of the other six entrances quite distant from public "social" spaces can in themselves totally eliminate possibilities of running into and perhaps making new friends in any common "hang out" space. The layout of most hotels does not lend itself to spontaneous friendship formation. Hotel guests are not expected to develop repetitive and lasting friends based on chance encounters during their usually brief stays. Nor would guests, in the U.S. at least, be willing to share bathroom facilities for a more "hostel" experience. Yet many of the interviewees leave us with the clear impression that some other residence halls on campus do in fact somehow engender greater numbers and/or quality of social experiences. Are these created by a more spontaneous layout of public spaces, perhaps more reduced in size to give a sense of activity? Or is there some contribution of the architecture at a more cultural, expressive and institutional level (this question will be addressed in the section on cultural expression)? 107. Hanging out with or running into friends: As seen in the diagram of incidence of non-organized use for public social spaces--including the more active study spaces or living rooms--one recognizes the small number of the total residential group of 480 that are involved in such activities at any typical time. The two primary TV/gameroom/kitchen areas of Luna and Sol, are certainly more than adequate at present to accommodate all the needs of the total population; similarly, the active study spaces seem to more than fully accommodate all desired social encounters which want to occur in these locales. Interviewees said these spaces were most often largely available, and only the kitchens were ever, though rarely, crowded. Given the social intensity of rooms, with their usual TV, VCR, stereo, WEB access, the light usage of public spaces for these purposes should not be surprising. It is clear from survey information, at least, that for most residents, having an active social life in greater La Paz just isn't very important. Much of the contrary impression comes from interviewees, many of whom are more organizationally active in the hall. These issues are relative to La Paz architectural intentions as exemplary of the "New Urbanism", a recognized attempt by mostly city planners and designers to provide more people friendly, and presumably more sociable environments. The problem of American towns and cites in this regard are the often anonymous urban inter-spaces between home, work, institution, and organized recreation. As an American microcosm, perhaps, the inter-spaces of La Paz as well have no measurable social intensity. 109. Getting to know people in other wings: Aside from using the front, hotel-like lobby spaces to get people to meet and do social things together, interviewees also comment frequently about a perceived negative social effect of very separated wings along the La Paz paths of the "maze". This appears to be a very difficult architectural, and social, problem. How does one create greater access and connection between wings while at the same time limiting the numbers of strangers walking through any particular wing? This case brings to mind the literature on "defensible space" in high-rise housing. When some number of people have their doors open, they can provide a kind of natural surveillance and hence territorial comfort. This, however, tends to occur only in the evening hours after about 9:00. At other times, most doors will be closed and an encounter with a stranger while alone on the way to one's bathroom might be territorially uncomfortable. The presence of one primary entrance door to a wing in other halls may provide far greater natural "defense" than the many cases in La Paz where pathway doors exist at both ends of the wing. Yet we have no information at present how single entrance layouts in other halls facilitate or hinder more positive, spontaneous socialization between wings. 112. Being inhibited from entering some public area: The doors to social spaces can be an additional hindrance to easy, spontaneous contact. One must make an additional effort to check things out, and if some group is already in the space, the somewhat intrusive act of opening a door to see who is there may actually inhibit one from doing so. Certainly the doors work well when living rooms, classroom, or conference rooms are being used, sometimes noisily, for some organized event. Naturally these spaces must be climate controlled and conform to fire codes, causes that may at times work against spontaneous social activity. 114. Being safe inside the building day or night: While only one or two of the interviewees mentioned any uneasiness of being in and about La Paz at night, the issue shows up with considerable emphasis as survey takers rank their overall top ten among the 96. One is unaware of any significant incidence of crime within the building at night, in spite of the mentioned prevalence of pulled blinds and related lack of natural surveillance, and the frequent "tailgating" of non-residents into the premises (also given some weight on the survey). Yet the perception, at least, seems to exist among many residents. Here one returns to characteristics of "maze" folklore extending beyond wayfinding to the social/territorial. With the subdued, non-institutional, relatively dark, dense urban street-like atmosphere at night, some can at least imagine situations which might be quite commonplace in similar settings out in the larger world. Thus we consider the difficulty of accessing the tradeoffs which must occur in design/planning attempts to accommodate multiple categorical purposes by only building one form. Certainly we have seen how La Paz' pathways will at times be seen with some very positive aesthetic and expressive meaning. Even initial wayfinding problems will become neutral or even positive for many. At night, however, given the absence of institutional lighting, natural surveillance from windows or spontaneous social activity along public pathways, the setting for some can at times connote those most negative of social encounters. 115. Being around or avoiding the opposite gender: The separation and mixing of genders in different wings of La Paz was only a mildly interesting topic for most interviewees and survey takers. Some women in particular may prefer single gender wings. This is less an architectural issue than an administrative one of making choices known to incoming, particularly freshmen residents. One of the positive attributes of diverse La Paz pathways, and two-ended entrances to wings, is the ability to chose whether or not to walk through an opposite gender wing, or segment of your wing. 116. How residents tell male from female wings: The unsolicited comments about women being able to distinguish men's wing from "sweat" odors is interesting in light of recent research on possibilities of women biologically selecting good genetic matches in potential partners on this basis. Some indication does seem to exist that some women do not regard the mix of many male scents positively. Maybe this is just a common hygienic reaction. Certainly male wings can benefit from good ventilation, perhaps both mechanical and natural. 118. Wheelchairs having to take separate routes from friends: At least three situations in La Paz may require a person in a wheelchair to have to take a separate route when going places with friends.
Public Spaces: Cultural Expression 119. Making a good first impression on friends and relatives: Beyond issues of intended community among a diverse population of 480 residents--much of which runs counter to many of their suburban experiences--La Paz provides a very positive status image, a great "first impression" to friends and family. Not only does newness and richness of detail contribute in and of itself to this meaning, but additionally residents will make positive comparisons to the images of other residential halls on campus. The La Paz image appears to do very well in attracting consumer oriented student/clients. Again, the perceived similarity with a hotel or club seems, in this regard, appropriate. The hotel analogy may also be interesting in the degree of "community" that can develop. Well designed resorts or hotels in this climate will undoubtedly have many of the same scales of exterior courtyards as La Paz. A limited number of chance social encounters might occur in some of these spaces. Yet such will be rare not only because hotel residents haven't seen each other often before, but these possible occasions simply are too spread out, too infrequent, and not essentially linked with many of the courtyard spaces. Hotels, however, have no collective mission. A richness of exterior landscape spaces in desert climates may primarily function as they appear to do in La Paz--for scenic visual and non-visual aesthetics. In the latter case, however, the pleasant, landscaped settings may become less interesting for their initial, exploratory nature (as in the resort), than as opportunities to be quiet, alone or more meditative. 121. Does La Paz have a particular style?: Overall, the composite of issues in interviews and surveys in this category received relatively light weighting of importance--with the exception of first impressions of La Paz. Here, not unlike the closely linked minimal social use of public spaces, one should not be surprised by students' lack of interest in larger, more institutionalized, cultural organization or architecture. In an age of radically increased personal freedom and diversity, especially through extending technologies of the automobile and electronics, the idea of committing oneself to some permanent, architecturally expressed institutionalized setting may largely be anathema for young residents. Yet certainly the "newly urban" architecture of La Paz attempts no traditional iconography of university tradition, legitimacy, or even style. It is primarily in the scales of social identity associated with exterior, organizing courtyards and the like, that one is left with an impression that spontaneous social exchange will build into "community" for corridors, larger courtyards, the entire building, the district, and even the university as a whole. Such a view may in fact be something of a misrepresentation of tightly spaced urban communities, usually in Middle-Eastern cultures. Our Western, more purely territorial view of space, is prone to interpret stable, more institutionalized social organization as developing primarily through a spatially mitigated propinquity of users. If people bump into one another enough, some more cultural, community-like social order will follow. Contrary to the tourist's impressions of crowded urban spaces in the Middle-East, however, is a relatively hidden, but much more powerful, undoubtedly ancient spatial system of more symbolically organized spaces, especially within any architectural structure but also in traditional cities. The La Paz idea of creating as continuous of spontaneous street as possible from Highland district to corridor--task conditions of having to "gate" the building for security reasons notwithstanding--is certainly creative and well intentioned. However, in the absence of any real pre-developed cultural pattern for the different collective scales of the building, e.g. the corridor, courtyard or entire group of residents, the prevalent street-like or pathway experience through La Paz, must depend entirely on spontaneous encounters to develop at the cultural level. The observed absence of frequency of such not only creates a somewhat anti-social pathway image at times, but additionally cannot evolve into more formalized aspects of at least minimum "community". 123. Belonging to the University of Arizona "community"; Certainly the architecture of La Paz carries some broader "community" meaning in its occasional understanding as "Southwest" in style (region) and/or as part of the "Red Brick" tradition of UA buildings (university). Such is different from both the more immediately comparative and status oriented value of making a good first impression, and the development of some deeper, more local set of lasting social relationships within the residence hall. Eventually, with the addition of other arcaded halls in the district, the present "first impression" of La Paz would probably subordinate to a more unifying, rather than distinguishing, set of images. Just as the Red Brick tradition is seen positively, when perceived, this kind of district development would eventually contribute additional "community" meaning, though not necessarily related to or engendering social group formation within any particular hall. 124. Participating in scheduled events, celebrations, performances in special spaces: Most of the more organizationally inclined interviewees participated in the barbecues and other major events in the Sol courtyard. Events in Sol courtyard seem somewhat less than integrated into some more institutional or cultural layout for the whole of La Paz. First, one sees a clear ambiguity about what these two major courtyards, Luna and Sol, are in relation to each other. The possible symbolism of having one for more purely social events with food and shows (Sol), and the other for more formal, assemblies of the community (Luna), is quite interesting. Such could express two essential conditions of social order at the largest scale (but again no cultural structure really exists prior to use). Certainly the nicely landscaped, café-like courtyard of Sol connotes the one while Luna is actually said by some to look like an amphitheater (for more formal events). Yet this later use cannot occur in the space as designed. A second reason why these spaces seem less integrated is their separation from the major pathways of the building. It is like having a market and mosque plaza in the center of the city, and not having to go through it to get to the neighborhoods--this considering a central open space more in a symbolic, institutional sense than for any purely spontaneous social effect. Of course many other architectural things may have conditioned the position of the entry and its effect of splitting and isolating the two courtyards. Interviewees were questioned about whether people could or would spontaneously drop by events in Sol, in addition to the more frequent arrangements of friends going together. It is not clear just how much having to make a special "entry" of sorts into Sol to see what is going on would inhibit any number of residents from doing so. This same issue has been noted for all the room-enclosed social spaces. The organized use of smaller public spaces like the Iwans or living rooms for other events appears to be less related to the immediate adjacent, residential social group (though this does occur) than finding available locales anywhere in the building, particularly for monthly wing meetings. Finally, one finds a clear architectural issue with perhaps more immediate and usable implications. A seemingly unusual or unpredicted amount of event and other advertising occurs on walls and doors around the lobby. Does some less than expected amount of social activity from the architectural layout or perhaps resident demography prompt additional La Paz organizational attempts to get people together? How does one interpret the lack of any negative mention by interviewees of all the posters and the like in the entry? Are they indifferent to the possible conflict with some overall visual aesthetic composition? Or do they recognize the usual priority of the social (and cultural) over things purely aesthetic? Or, if we take much of the evaluation at face value, are young student residents neither very interested in belonging to some larger La Paz social entity, nor really that offended by any possible aesthetic infringement of the one public space they pass through most frequently? |
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