Project File: Apartments designed as large houses

June 1, 2002
Purchase College State University of New York (SUNY), Purchase

More than 400 students will be housed in the new garden-style modular apartments being built at Purchase College State University of New York (SUNY) in Purchase, N.Y., as part of a two-year, $20 million construction project. The new two-story complex will be built in two phases.

The housing programs will separate 400 students into 13 buildings scaled and expressed as large houses. The development is intended to create a warm residential environment related to the site's features.

The design consists of 13 two-story contemporary buildings with a total of 408 beds for students on an eight-acre wooded site. The project presents an extension into the natural landscape from the centralized campus.

The combined parameters of old-growth woods, centuries-old stone walls from farm boundaries and the relationship to the existing orthogonal quadrangles of the campus led the university to create one group of buildings that spreads like fingers along either side of the stone wall. A second group forms a courtyard for group activities.

Twelve of the buildings are designed to accommodate eight apartments with four students per apartment. Each apartment is 932 square feet. Apartment layout is an open plan with shared common space with kitchen, bath and four private bedrooms.

Architect for the project is Gene Kaufman Architects (New York City).

For more information on these projects and others, visit www.schooldesigns.com.

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