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Drury College Residential Campus
Springfield, MO
Involved Subsidiaries:Winner -- Honorable Mention National Campus Housing Competition
Student academic housing has long been an area of architectural interest to The Kimmerle Group. In 2000, the firm received an honorable mention in the National Campus Housing Competition for student housing conducted by Drury College (now Drury University).
Committee members went on to contact The Kimmerle Group personally with accolades for this submission. They recognized that the firm had presented a new and innovative approach to collegiate residential architecture while integrating the traditional concepts of quadrangle, commons and campus residential houses.
These concepts can be further defined as follows:
Campus houses:
The development of individual and identifiable colleges as the basic unit of neighborhood in an academic residential setting, affording a high level of identity for the individual students and a sense of a closely-knit unit to bridge the span from family to campus living. Campus houses should not exceed 50 students in varying room and suite arrangements.
Quadrangle:
A collection of colleges around a common green space that allows for security, observation and the integration of landscaped oases into the campus plan. More importantly, the arrangement of buildings provides a filter to the outside community with celebrated entry or gateway points providing an enhanced sense of exclusivity and border. A total of three colleges or 150 students is the appropriate sizing for typical quadrangle clusters.
Commons:
A structure located in each quadrangle that provides central functional elements including food service, lounge, computer lab, counseling and advisory support as a fixed and understood resource for the student population. A total of 150 students can be serviced by a single commons element in the plan. Uniting two quadrangles can accommodate up to 300 students, the absolute limit for the scalability of structures of this type.
The scale of the common element is an important aspect of the plan. While consolidation of these elements provides efficiency and organization in an academic setting, the dispersion of these elements on a small scale creates a significant sense of intimacy, control and accessibility not otherwise available in a larger institutional model.
Going forward, The Kimmerle Group is committed to addressing the needs of academic institutions as designer and architect of record as well as designated developer in appropriate settings. We look forward to working with academic institutions who are eager to embrace and incorporate these basic tenets within their housing policy and programs.