Bacchanalian Designs

On the night of September 7th, moisture was running down the wrong side of the walls of the event hall in the Student Organization Center at Hilles, more colloquially known as the SOCH. A couple sniffs, disconcertingly enough, revealed the source of the moisture was not rain but the prespiration of the students at the Rush Hour dance.

Perhaps until the next round of renovations of the SOCH are underway, the walls of the event hall will break out in a fragrant and disturbingly visible sheen annually for Rush Hour. Hosted by the Asian American Brotherhood, the Black Men’s Forum, the Black Students’ Association, and the Chinese Students’ Association, Rush Hour usually packs the hall with students: good for the organizations’ publicity, unfortunate for those pressed up against the drenched glass.

At least Rush Hour attendees can now take a breather and wring out their hair in the recently renovated first-floor lounge of the SOCH. The underlying purpose of the renovations—to increase student accessibility and use of the SOCH—raise questions about how the design of party spaces on campus shapes the Harvard social dynamic and the factors that influence where Harvard students choose to spend the dark hours of their Saturday nights.

GOOGLE GLAMOUR

The SOCH building does not usually entertain the type of crowd attracted by Rush Hour; students on campus or in river houses do not tend to be enthusiastic about trekking up to the Quad for any reason. Though the SOCH has always been spacious and airy, prior to the 2012-13 school year the first floor lobby looked like a conventional office lounge, complete with dully colored plastic chairs and the occasional pile of cardboard boxes in the corner.

If the lobby area still resembles an office area, that office is in the headquarters of Google or another corporate campus: the kind of office where it is acceptable to play Tetris at your desk or bring your cat to work. Two brand-new high-definition televisions hang on opposing walls of the lounge, while a pristine kitchen area whispers of endless opportunities to nick unsuspecting students’ leftovers. If thievery doesn’t appeal to you,  new vending machines, including a Starbucks coffee machine, offer a more dignified route to sustenance, while the community hall has been remodeled to look like a meeting space rather than a study room.

“[The student vision] was about making the space unique, especially because of that geographical barrier to the quad in general,” UC President Daniel P. Bicknell ’13 says. “We wanted to draw students from the [Yard] as well as from the River.”

Changes to the event hall are less noticable than those to the lounge but just as significant. “While the student houses have spaces, usually dining halls, where dances and parties are held, the SOCH event space is probably unique as a dance floor with its disco lights and built-in AV equipment,” project architect Eric Ward of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering wrote in an email.  “The adjacent living room area, with its quiet seating and games, will also be a great amenity as a break-out space for a dance event.”

In fact, the new aesthetic of the event hall is comparable to that of a popular nightclub, according to Anna M. Remus ’13, a club promoter and DJ manager.“

This is actually pretty common in a nice club,” Remus says as we walk through the remodeled areas of the SOCH, tapping the floor of the event hall with her foot. “The floor will either be wood or this kind of linoleum. And the whole statement color, black-and-grey thing is pretty common.”

But there isn’t much else the SOCH has in common with a nightclub; even if Rush Hour packed the house, the new design lacks a classic feature of nightlife spots. “With this space, there’s no cut-off or anything. There’s nowhere for people to ‘hide.’” Remus says, taking in the new event hall. “In a normal club, you’ve got either a balcony or a second floor, or multiple rooms that can be opened up. Sometimes there’s a VIP section, or little alcoves--things like that. Here, everything’s out there all at once.”

It’s true: not everyone wants a large number of people to see what exactly they’re doing at all times at a college party. Large, open, and undivided rooms can be reminiscent of a 7th-grade dance. “They have so much map and logo stuff everywhere that it kind of feels like you’re going to a middle school thing,” Remus says as we leave the lobby, which bares a floor map and is emblazoned with  the SOCH’s logo.  She also notes the visible office rooms in the lounge.

Architects, administrators, and students all agree that the new space is attractive, versatile, and dynamic. “The renovations have definitely made the SOCH more appealing. [The renovations] were about trying to brand the SOCH as a versatile space capable of holding events, being a study space, and having that cafe vibe,” Bicknell says. “You basically can do whatever you want in that space, and that’s a huge advantage. It’s unlike any other space on campus.”

Though the space has many functions, the desire to facilitate student parties is an undeniable concern of the renovations. “The new Event Hall includes substantial speakers and subwoofers, party lights, dance floor, and curtains,” wrote SOCH manager Doug Walo in an email since he declined to be interviewed by phone or in person. “These enhancements were all a direct response to student feedback on the challenges students faced running parties in that space in the past.” I chose to explore the party spaces we know and love on campus to see how the SOCH measures up; if the architecture of the SOCH is supposed to have a large impact on its success as a social space, then the architecture of the party spaces we already frequent is something to be investigated.

PUREL SHOTS

Barely a minute’s walk from the SOCH lies an alternative for social events: the Ten-man suite in Currier House, named quite simply after its housing capacity.Composed of ten singles around a large common room, the Ten-man is also known as a very social suite, frequently hosting house parties on weekends and serving as “Heaven’” during Halloween’s Heaven and Hell Dance.

Featuring a private roof, kitchen, and elevator, the Ten-man condenses the majority of its open space into a single area. The suite still has additional space sectioned off from the large common room in the form of bedrooms, which differentiates the common room from a space like the SOCH’s event hall. The Ten-man seniors see their suite as a social space for the house and thus do their best to host parties whenever they can.“

Obviously this is a space where we live, but it’s also a gift we’ve been given,” Louis R. Evans ’13, a resident of the Ten-man, explains. “We don’t want our space to go unused.”

Though the Ten-man lacks the SOCH’s bells and whistles, the architecturally simple space achieves its purpose. “The best part about the room that makes it useful for socializing is that all the rooms are directly off of it,” another Ten-man resident, Christian A. Rivera ’13, explains. “You have to interact with people while you’re here.”

Remus also points out that the nearby singles would be attractive to some at parties. “Everyone wants somewhere to run off to at some point,” she says. “So the bedrooms would probably be an advantage during parties. Could be bad for the people living in there, though.”

Though potentially having your bedroom invaded is less than appealing, the seniors living in the Belltower suite of Pforzheimer House are proud to take on the burden. They have inherited more than a bent spire and the decorative lights that spell out ‘Pfoho’ in the common room of the top floor.

“You’re doing it for Pfoho, in a sense,” Frankie K. Wong ’13 says of living in the Belltower. “We keep the house running.”The Belltower, as the largest suite in the Harvard dormitories, has historically been seen as an inclusive, highly social suite. With 12 bedrooms, three common rooms, two stories, and a built-in bar on the top floor, it comes as no surprise that the Belltower is packed full on many a Friday night.

The features that make the Belltower so appealing to the student body go beyond the possibilities offered by the bar. The layout of the suite, as well as the additions and alterations made by the current residents, is suggestive of a typical nightclub. The bottom floor, furnished mainly by futons, can serve as a socializing area or a place to take a break from the bursting up per floor, where people usually dance or crowd around the bar.

The suite is cleverly designed to make it feel even more spacious than it already is. Long, narrow hallways give the impression that it is a farther walk between rooms than it actually is; a large mirror that spans the wall behind the bar almost seems to double the size of the common room on the top floor. Though that room in particular becomes very cramped very quickly, this actually can be attractive to partygoers. If it is too spacious, a room can make partygoers feel isolated and overexposed to other students. As Remus noted, partygoers typically appreciate places to hide. At parties, it is possible that students take an amount of comfort in the fact that they cannot be seen and observed by every other attendee. But Belltower residents are quick to point out that a large part of the appeal of the suite is its versatility. The suite has in the past hosted stein clubs, movie screenings, and various events for house and school organizations.

“Everybody here knows the Belltower, and it’s a house space,” George X. Fu ’13 says. “We have a very close-knit house community and part of that is that everyone hangs out in the Belltower. It has traditionally been a place where the whole house gathers.”

Even during a party, the dynamic of the suite can be changed to accomodate different events simply by informally sectioning off rooms and rearranging furniture. “The setup we have here is really conducive to being able to throw just about anything we want,” Fu says.

Versatility seems to be a common theme in discussion of social space. The Belltower and the SOCH in particular count it among their chief merits. Yet, there is something undeniably different about the atmosphere of these spaces. The Belltower can serve many purposes, but it can be completely reconfigured depending on the occasion; the SOCH, designed with versatility in mind, functions differently. “The SOCH 1st floor was designed with an eye for the synergy between flexible spaces filled with lots of great amenities such as the game tables, video games and TVs, AV equipment, and a variety of quality furniture and both programmed and casual use by students,” Walo wrote. Perhaps there is a cost to synergy; for partygoers who need the illusion of anonymity and liberation in order to let loose, this atmosophere could be dispelled by the sight of campus organization offices and Purel dispensers in the SOCH.

DEAD PARTY ANIMALS

No one can swipe into a final club or any of the Greek houses. When a party is being thrown in one of the brick and mortar houses on Mt. Auburn St., it’s not always guaranteed that a friendly Harvard student will be allowed in. The interior of these places can be less than seductive; the stuffy basement of the Sigma Chi house tends to smell overwhelmingly of stale beer on Thursday nights. It can be unsettling to party while preserved animals which rest on some of the final clubs’ walls stare glassily into the room. Despite this, lines of students form outside these houses every weekend.

The exclusivity itself is a substantial factor, but aspects of their design or architecture actually contribute to their appeal as social spaces. A certain sense of intimacy can be found in many of the houses: after all, they still serve as living spaces for brothers or club members. As Remus told me earlier, heavily divided space, offering a plethora of dimly lit nooks and crannies, is attractive to college students looking to let loose; Sigma Chi is no exception.

The final clubs and frat houses are also set apart from on-campus suites and event halls by decor. The walls of the Belltower and Ten-man are generally blank, the futons mismatched, and the floors are worn down. The conditions of the suites are not due to any negligence or oversight on the part of their residents, but simply because the rooms have endured years of heavy use, and decoration is not usually a significant part of a college student’s priorities (or budget).

Some of the frat houses have matching furniture sets and art on the walls, and if the hardwood floors are worn down in some places, others are covered with carpets. Some final clubs’ walls are actually paneled or hidden by shelves of leather-bound books. Wall space is occupied by plaques and, yes, the occasional taxidermied animal. In short, those houses feel truly lived-in, which potentially makes socializing feel more personal and intimate. And if any partygoer wants to sneak away (perhaps with company), fraternities offer more closed-off spaces to do so.

But typical criticisms of the final clubs do not stem from their design; the same exclusivity that attracts partygoers poses a problem for students who cannot get in. The discontent with these spaces—evident in multiple social space campaigns and a 2009 attempt by the UC Social Space Task Force to raise funds to purchase a space in the Square—made the renovations to the SOCH so urgent in the first place. It is sobering to compare the enhancements such as disco lights and subwoofers with the factors that make more popular party spots a success. However, the SOCH seems to be having some  success; the SOCH’s number of room reservations and bookings have increased by 35%. Perhaps, the renovations will have a lasting effect on this uptick in popularity.

SOCH MORNING AFTER

We had places to party on campus long before the SOCH was renovated. What we didn’t really have were many places to meet with friends the morning after to regale them with stories of bad decisions or unexpected turnouts from the night before.

“We wanted to make [the SOCH] a kind of space we don’t currently have on campus; a flexible social space,” Bicknell says. Indeed, we do currently have plenty of party space on campus, be it a student suite, a Greek house, a final club, or a student group building. The SOCH doesn’t need to be a party space, because it so clearly has other benefits; the lounge could resemble anything from a cushy café to a welcoming study area to an extended and updated living room.

It is hard to envision the SOCH hosting a large number of wild parties, but that does not undermine its other benefits. It could have a unique place in the fabric of undergraduate lives. And a lack of revelry will at least keep the walls cleaner.

—Natalie T. Chang can be reached at nataliechang@college.harvard.edu.