-By Katie Weeks

Shortly before my freshman year of college, the university I attended opened a new student recreation center. Top of the line at the time, it was full of natural light and new fitness equipment, including an indoor track and multistory climbing wall. The problem, however, was it was a good 10 minute walk from anything else on campus, including the official student center, which housed a coffee shop, student offices, ballroom, post office and even a bowling alley. In between the two sat the library, which was once a big draw on campus but in an increasingly digital age was fast losing its prominence as a gathering spot.

The problem of how to provide one central space where students can congregate for a multitude of purposes remains a challenge on campuses across the country today. Whereas in the past it may have been the library that drew students, increasingly it is the student center that acts as a campus hub around the clock for schools of all sizes and shapes, be they state funded or private, residential, or commuter.

“Students want a number of environments within the same building, so we’re seeing the typical, traditional lounge components being merged with classrooms, student recreation centers, and student health centers. All of these programs are then tied together with lounges and amenities such as cafés or Starbucks-like offerings where students can hang out and be connected in an instant,” says Jason Boyer, AIA, LEED AP, design principal and director of architecture at OWP/P’s Phoenix office, which recently completed a two-story, 27,000-sq.-ft. expansion for the student union and dining hall at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz. “Creating 24/7 centers has become compelling because students are up and around at all times,” he adds. “They like a flexible environment that they can use on their own schedule, whether it’s in the middle of the day when they have two hours of downtime between classes or at 3 a.m. when they’re cramming for an exam or finishing a team project huddled in a collaboration suite.”

Amenity-wise, the pool tables and bowling alleys of the past are giving way to WiFi and Wii pits, and those large dining halls consisting of one massive room are being replaced by multiple smaller and more intimate areas with soft seating. Also, nightclubs are being added to the mix to increase a center’s functionality well into the night, and this provides another design challenge. “Something people are grappling with is space that supports people early in the day when everyone is active but also creating a venue for students to gather in smaller groups or later without it feeling like the building is dead. How do you do it so that one area doesn’t feel isolated in the evening?” says Christopher Hill, principal at CBT in Boston, who recently completed the student center at Curry College in Milton, Mass. “It usually involves food, and since you can’t leave the entire servery open, you have to design in a way that parts can be open while others are closed without compromising the overall security.”

Also on the way out is an institutional vibe, replaced, instead, by more residential or hospitality-influenced aesthetics. “Student centers used to be pretty utilitarian and not focused on amenities so much as they were on basic functional requirements,” notes Burton Miller, AIA, senior vice president and design principal at San Francisco-based Hornberger + Worstell. In crafting centers for schools like Sonoma State University and various branches of California State University, Horberger + Worstell draws from its hospitality experience. “In hotel deign, we tend to be very mindful of the guest experience, from the sense of arrival and how you orient a user to what’s available in a facility to the paths that you follow to get to each one,” he notes. This visible circulation is a big challenge, says Hill, noting that ideally you want “a space where students can come through the building at multiple levels, but at the same time will be able to look around and see a majority of the programming available so they can then make the decision of whether to participate or not.”

Simply throwing an array of programs into one space, however, rarely works. “You can’t just say a student center should go here and have these set pieces. You have to look at where things are already happening on campus, what venues are already there, and why students go there or do not go there. One has to really understand how the student center—whether renovated or new—will fit that missing space or place on campus,” says Hill. The design challenge is tapping into what exact amenities and what kind of structure each individual campus needs. “One size doesn’t fit all and one program doesn’t fit all,” Hill notes. “One problem in the last five years is that many buildings were too multi-functional and were so overscheduled in terms of programming that they became what I’ve dubbed multi-dysfunctional because the building then doesn’t work for any one specific purpose.”

What’s more, student centers aren’t just for students. As universities and colleges increasingly find themselves competing for enrollment, an up-to-date center can double as a marketing piece. With this in mind, branding comes into play. In fact, for Grady Design Group in St. Louis, branding was the key design focus for Brady Commons, the new student union at the University of Missouri—Columbia. The three-phase project is combining three buildings into one that, when completed, will span one city block. Wendy Gray, principal of Gray Design Group, notes, “The emphasis on branding was huge. In the corporate world you may have that in the lobby or on an accent wall, but here it is from the front door to the back door.” Before, Gray explains, “you could have walked into the existing commons, and it could have been any school.” Here, however, the designers were tasked with using the school palette of black and gold along with tiger-print accents that reference the school mascot, Truman the Tiger. A Mizzou alumnae herself, Gray tapped into her own school spirit (along with that a few other alums on the design team) to help drive the design, which aims to balance Tiger pride with a dose of professionalism. The results seem to have received a passing grade: with Phase One complete, the university is happily on to Phase Two.