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New student residence unit typologies: introducing Housing Unit Classification (HUC), a framework for understanding student socialization

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Abstract

Increasing privacy demands have led to the design and construction of new and diverse universities student residences across Northern America, that prioritize private spaces for students. This paper proposes the Housing Unit Classification (HUC) using historical professional standards (ACUHO-I) to generate a nuanced unit typology of student housing. The refined typology permits engagement with additional variables of agent control, including density of usage (i.e., density) and governance (i.e., territoriality), in addition to unit facilities (i.e., bathroom, kitchen, lounge). The HUC is complemented by the analytical tool Hierarchy of Isolation and Privacy in Architecture Tool (HIPAT), together classifying levels of privacy in built space through a visual matrix. HUC allows spatial analysis of how agents acting on built space can create different feelings associated with privacy, crowding, isolation, and socialization in university housing and enables further multidisciplinary study of housing challenges using common terminology and systematic methods.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University President’s of Toronto Metropolitan University, University of Toronto, OCAD University and York University; Office of the Dean, Faculty of Community Services at Toronto Metropolitan University; and Office of the Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science at Toronto Metroploitan University. The authors wish to acknowledge Thomas Gomez Ospina and Andrew Lee for their research assistance in summarizing articles and completing drawings for the development of the work. The authors wish to thank the greater StudentDwellTO (SDTO) team comprised of the Steering Committee, Advisory Committee and especially the core team members of Amy Campbell, Victoria McCrum, Dr. Luisa Sotomayor, Dr. Marcelo Vieta, Mauricio Quiros, and Jeremy Bowles for their commitment to the SDTO project. The authors with to thank the two anonymous reviewers who helped us to improve the manuscript with excellent comments and suggestions.

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Correspondence to Shelagh McCartney.

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McCartney, S., Rosenvasser, X. New student residence unit typologies: introducing Housing Unit Classification (HUC), a framework for understanding student socialization. J Hous and the Built Environ 38, 443–465 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-022-09950-4

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