Privacy Territories in Student University Housing Design: Introduction of the Hierarchy of Isolation and Privacy in Architecture Tool (HIPAT)

Abstract

Students’ privacy expectations in university housing have increased, a change that has been reflected in universities shifting from traditional units to increasing numbers of apartments and suites. This study examines privacy and territories in student university housing architecture, using architectural plans of 76 residences, relating the socialization of university students to their academic success by bringing together various literatures—student development, student development practice, and architecture of student housing—to address positivesocializing forms of architecture and effects of crowding and isolation in residence design. The proposed Hierarchy of Isolation and Privacy in Architecture Tool (HIPAT) is a tool for measuring and analyzing levels of privacy and the impact that control mechanisms in the built environment of student university housing have on them. The HIPAT addresses the need to analyze student interactions in residences from an architectural lens that applies a robust privacy literature as well as visualizing primary, secondary, and public territories in student university housing.