University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

Lambeth: No Place For High-Rise

By Richard G. Andry, Jr.

On Wednesday and Thursday of
this week every student will be
given an opportunity to voice his
opinion concerning a vital question
on the growth of the University.
That question involves student
housing and specifically the
construction of high-rise
dormitories on Lambeth Field.
While the construction of high-rise
dorms may appear to be an
insignificant question in a complex,
multi-faceted problem such as the
Lambeth Field development, it can
easily stand for the whole issue.
These planned high-rise dorms
represent the misplaced priorities of
student living accommodations that
the administration seems intent on
perpetuating. This is an
opportunity to express your
desires.

Reassessment

A strong sentiment by the
entire University cannot be ignored.
While there is not space to reassess
the whole Lambeth Field problem
and its many implications, we can
look objectively at the relationship
of high-rise dormitories to this site
and to the whole University.

At this time in the University's
development it is crucial that the
next housing complex provide an
environment that will maintain and
enhance the small personal scale
and close interaction that has
characterized this University in the
past. This is especially true in light
of the tremendous growth which
has been projected. Lambeth Field
may well be the last possible
location for student housing that
could still be an integral part of the
University community. Surely the
Birdwood tract does not have this
attraction. The construction of
high-rise dormitories would be a
regressive step in the drive to
maintain student identities within
the total University community.
These towering monuments would
tend to make their many
inhabitants merely numbers rather
than individual students with
individual needs and desires.

People create a definite hierarchy
of identification levels in a living
community. They do this in order
to define their own niche in
relation to the total environment.
The arbitrary construction of
high-rise dorms tends to disrupt
these identity levels by grouping
large numbers of people together in
a relatively small space without
providing the proper means of
interaction. Such a project
constructed on Lambeth Field
would have these undesirable
results and would disastrously
diminish the character and identity
of the space involved.

The University of Virginia is an
institution steeped in tradition, and
one of the strongest traditions is its
architectural character. Since
Jefferson's original scheme, most
construction has maintained the
strong architectural presence laid
out by the founder of the
University. One of the major
elements of this character that has
been preserved is the small scale of
the buildings. Yet, the construction
of high-rise dormitories would be
antithetical to this quality.
Lambeth Field has already
established a small-scale
environment including the
Colonnade on the east and the
residential area on the north. The
total homogeneous architectural
character of the University would
suffer noticeably it high-rise
dormitories were constructed on
this critical site.

Fastest Housing

Another important point to
consider is whether the
construction of high-rise
dormitories would provide housing
sooner than some other solution.
The fastest way to provide student
rooms would be constructing
different types of temporary
housing. The administration claims
that since it already owns the plans
for the future nursing dormitories
(high-rise) it could place two or
three of these type buildings on
Lambeth Field. It becomes obvious
that the primary motive here is one
of economic considerations and not
time. The University already owns
the plans to the McCormick and
Alderman Road dormitories and
could just as easily adopt these for
the Lambeth Field site. If the
placing of these dorms on Lambeth
seems ridiculous, the placing of the
nursing dorms (designed for a
completely different function and
site) is absolutely ludicrous.

Student housing is not the type
of construction that will be filled
upon completion. Students must
know in the spring whether
dormitory space will be available
for the following year. Therefore, a
year-to-year timetable is
established; if dorms are not ready
in September, then they will not be
filled until the following year. One
whole year has already been wasted
on the Lambeth Field development
and pushes back expected
occupancy dates at least two years.

A disadvantage of high-rise dorms
in relation to the time required
before availability is that the whole
building must be completed before
anyone can occupy it; whereas, in a
low-rise solution students can move
in as each separate building is
completed. This actually makes a
low-rise solution faster in the
year-to-year timetable for student
occupancy.

The administration contends
that the construction of high-rise