Washington College
Residence Halls
Chestertown , Maryland

Completion: 2008
Size: 97,000 GSF
Cost: $25,000,000

Upon completing a master plan for Washington College, Ayers Saint Gross was asked to design 3 residence halls to house a total of 300 beds. These halls are located adjacent to Harford Residence Hall, also designed by Ayers/Saint/Gross. The three buildings will form a quadrangle, which is on axis with the recently completed lacrosse / soccer stadium. The buildings are situated so as to encourage outdoor gathering of residents as well as students living in adjacent facilities. The exterior design will be sympathetic to the existing campus character and comply with the campus master plan’s design guidelines.

These residence halls will house first and second year students in a mix of semi-suites and suites. There will be a range of single (2 beds total) and doubles (4 beds total) semi-suites. The typical suites having 2 singles and one double (4 beds total). These unit types have been intentionally chosen to bring the same amenities to younger students that older students typically receive.

Each residence hall is to convey a sense of home. The first floor will provide a building lounge with an adjacent kitchen that will not only serve the day to day gathering needs but also be able to support special evening events like a dinner for invited faculty hosted by the residents. The first floor will also provide a student office, workroom and storage to serve student life needs. One of the buildings will have an oversized building lounge for larger complex and College gatherings. Each RA community will have a floor lounge, kitchenette and a laundry room. The typical floor RA to bed ratio varies from 36 – 40. The first floor RA bed ratios range from 24 -28.

The design is addressing sustainable initiatives by using local materials, materials with recycled content, high performance glazing, recycling construction waste, w water management strategies and using a geothermal well field to take advantage of the inherent thermal properties of the earth to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. As part of Ayers/Saint/Gross’s sustainable initiative LEED was tracked throughout with a project goal of reaching the level of Silver Certification. The College has decided to engage a construction manager to help deliver this residence hall in order to meet an aggressive schedule of housing students in the Fall ’08.