Space planning 101 - space-saving designs for dormitories

Sunset, Sept, 1993 by Bill Crosby

These tight-space solutions from college dorms are worthy of study by anyone

Remember when you were a green-as-grass freshman and first stepped into your college dorm room? No space, no storage, no personality, and you had to share it with someone else? Fortunately, some old-timer (read: sophomore) on the floor showed you a clever solution for making it livable that went beyond putting the beds up on the dressers.

To find those ingenious space-saving solutions, we sent queries to student housing directors of 43 Western universities. From the responses, we picked three great examples that can provide ideas for kids going off to college as well as for the rooms of the ones staying at home. All are within a student's budget, can be assembled and disassembled within the room, and are free of permanent connections to the walls--a no-no at all the schools. They've all stood the test of a year of college living; by employing standard methods of safe construction, you should have no trouble achieving similarly durable results. (For younger children's safety, side rails should be added.)

Exemplifying the key space-saving strategy for all three rooms--getting the beds off the ground--is this ceiling-hugging structure, the pride of Encinitas Residence Hall at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Jon Berg's and Mark Gorelick's plywood-bottomed beds are suspended from the post-and-beam frame, freeing up floor space for a sofa and desks. The frame is even wired for track lighting and a ceiling fan.

University of Oregon

University of Oregon's Shafer Hall is the site of this cleverly cantilevered arrangement. Architecture student William Burris elevated the beds to make room for desks, a drawing table, and a couch. One end of the structure rests on university-issue wall-mounted bookshelves, which dictated the structure's height (the support arch at the other end could be duplicated to suit a more conventional installation). Above the doorway, a platform spans the structure and the door molding to support stereo components.

To keep costs down, doubled 2-by-4s were used instead of 4-by-4s. Bed-frame sides facing into the room are select lumber; everything else is construction grade. Burris fabricated the frame at the university craft center, then assembled it in the room using only a hammer and electric screwdriver.

Arizona State University

Denise Gooding's dad, Elmer, an economics professor at Arizona State University, made a deal with her: he'd build a bunk for her dorm room if she'd keep him company while he built it. We think she profited from the deal. His 16 1/2-foot-long creation spans one wall of her long, narrow room in Palo Verde Main. The toe-to-toe beds sit 6 feet off the ground, allowing desks, a refrigerator, and a microwave to be tucked below.