Talking Stick - January/February 2011 - 44

Conversations

In the Minds of Architects
We asked member architects to discuss how they started in the student housing industry and what higher education theories they refer to that influence their work.
BRADFORD L. ANGELINI
Participating in this conversation are S. Michael Evans, vice president of Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company in Norfolk, Virginia; Bradford L. Angelini, partner of Angelini & Associates Architects in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Paul Wuennenberg, principal at Mackey Mitchell Architects in St. Louis, Missouri; Joseph Stramberg, principal at Treanor Architects, P.A. in Lawrence, Kansas; and J. Eric Moss, principal at Ayers Saint Gross Architects & Planners in Baltimore, Maryland.

J. ERIC MOSS

Talking Stick: Why have you chosen student housing as a specialty? S. Michael Evans: I love the energy and
interaction with students, the deep personal commitment of professional housing staff, and the high leverage for transformational change that housing offers to a campus and the student living/learning experience.

would offer evidence of success and expose us to design options. That research introduced us to student development theory and key thinkers and writers on the national level. We also began to undertake housing system master planning that permitted us to fully understand and embrace all systemic aspects of a housing system, from recruitment to operations, staffing, programs, finances, and facilities. So, after years of concentration in student housing environments and campus design, we continue to explore new ideas and to discover new topics for research. It remains a very motivating focus, one that still has all the significance we discovered early in our body of work.

JOSEPH STRAMBERG

In the early days of our/my involvement in student housing design, student housing chose me rather than me choosing it. We won a couple of student housing projects and began to understand the level of detail needed, the importance of student housing for the institution, and the substantial impact and opportunity the housing environment offered to the residential experience and campus learning culture. We had to learn more in order to do great work for our clients. We were almost immediately mentored into a higher level of understanding and performance by our clients: VPs of student affairs, housing directors, professional staff, RAs, and students. In many ways we were trained by the college and university clients we were serving to ask the right questions about the right topics and to see housing as a critical piece of campus planning and design. Once we came to further appreciate the student residential environment, we began to undertake research to seek information that

Bradford L. Angelini: My interest in student
housing comes from both my personal academic and professional architectural background. During my senior year at The Ohio State University, I served as a residence advisor in Steeb Hall. This experience introduced me to housing administrators’ ways of thinking and showed me how, even 30 years ago, programming – including social and academic activities – was considered key to students’ collegiate success. As I prepared my own floor’s programs, I was confounded by the lack of usable space in what seemed a spacious building. Steeb Hall, built in 1961, had many universally designed spaces. To this day, I tell my clients that a space designed for many activities

S. MICHAEL EVANS

PAUL WUENNENBERG

Talking STick

Talking Stick - January/February 2011

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