Dormitory

For the type of community, see Dormitory community. For the 2023 film, see Dormitory (film). For the 2006 film, see Dorm (film).

A dormitory (originated from the Latin word dormitorium, often abbreviated to dorm), also known as a hall of residence or a residence hall (often abbreviated to halls), is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university students. In some countries, it can also refer to a room containing several beds accommodating people.

An American college dormitory room in 2002

Terminology

Broward Hall at the University of Florida in the 1960s

Dormitory is sometimes abbreviated to "dorm". In the UK, the word dormitory means a room (rather than a building) containing several beds accommodating unrelated people. This arrangement exists typically for pupils at boarding schools, travellers and military personnel, but is almost entirely unknown for university students. Student housing is normally referred to as "halls" or "halls of residence", or "colleges" in universities with residential colleges. A building providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people may also be called a house (members of a religious community or pupils at a boarding school), hostel (students, workers or travelers) or barracks (military personnel).

In English-speaking Canada, the common term is "residence" or "res" for short. At colleges and universities in the US, the term "residence hall" is often used instead of "dormitory". In Australia the terms "halls of residence" and "halls" are common, but "college" (or, more formally, "residential college") is also used in the cases of halls of residence that are named as such (e.g., Robert Menzies College, Trinity College and Mannix College).

College and university residences

United States

Aerial view of Bancroft Hall at the US Naval academy, said to be the largest dormitory building in the US

Jefferson Medical College Hospital School of Nursing students in their dorm room c.1951

Residential suites at Cal Poly Pomona

In the early colonial colleges, residence was often provided for students within the main college building, such as the Wren Building at the William & Mary (1705) and Nassau Hall at Princeton (1756); these went on to inspire other "Old Main" buildings, combining academic functions with accommodation. The first primarily residential building was the Harvard Indian College (1650), which also contained a printing press, while the first exclusively residential building was Stoughton Hall (1698), also at Harvard.

Most colleges and universities provide single or multiple occupancy rooms for their students, usually at a cost. These buildings consist of many such rooms, like an apartment building. The largest dormitory building in the US is said to be Bancroft Hall at the United States Naval Academy, housing 4,400 midshipmen in 1,700 multiple occupancy rooms.

Many colleges and universities no longer use the word "dormitory" and staff are now using the term residence hall (analogous to the United Kingdom "hall of residence") or simply "hall" instead. Outside academia however, the word "dorm" or "dormitory" is commonly used without negative connotations. Indeed, the words are used regularly in the marketplace as well as routinely in advertising.

Typically, a United States residence hall room holds two students with no toilet. This is usually referred to as a "double". Often, residence halls have communal bathroom facilities. In the United States, residence halls are sometimes segregated by sex, with men living in one group of rooms, and women in another. Some dormitory complexes are single-sex with varying limits on visits by persons of each sex. For example, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana has a long history of parietals, or mixed visiting hours. Most colleges and universities offer coeducational dorms, where either men or women reside on separate floors but in the same building or where both sexes share a floor but with individual rooms being single-sex. In the early 2000s, dorms that allowed people of opposite sexes to share a room became available in some public universities. Some colleges and university coeducational dormitories also feature coeducational bathrooms. Many newer residence halls offer single rooms as well as private bathrooms, or suite-style rooms.

Most residence halls are much closer to campus than comparable private housing such as apartment buildings. This convenience is a major factor in the choice of where to live since living physically closer to classrooms is often preferred, particularly for first-year students who may not be permitted to park vehicles on campus. Universities may therefore provide priority to first-year students when allocating this accommodation.

United Kingdom

Historical development

Aberdare Hall at Cardiff University, built in 1895, one of the few remaining single-sex halls of residence in the UK

Denys Lasdun's 'ziggurats' (1968), University of East Anglia

Until the mid 19th century, students at residential universities in England lived in colleges, where they rented a set of unfurnished rooms, paid their own servants, and bought their own meals. The first change from this came with the foundation of Bishop Hatfield's Hall (now Hatfield College) by David Melville at Durham University in 1846. This introduced three key concepts: rooms would be let furnished, all meals would be taken communally, and all expenses would be reasonable and fixed in advance, which combined to make the cost of accommodation in the hall much lower than in colleges. Melville also introduced single room study-bedrooms and, in 1849, opened the first purpose-built hall of residence in the country at Hatfield. The Oxford University Commission of 1852 found that "The success that has attended Mr. Melville's labours in Hatfield Hall at Durham is regarded as a conclusive argument for imitating that institution in Oxford"; this report led to a requirement in the Oxford University Act 1854 that Oxford allow the establishment of private halls, although these halls were never very successful.

The 19th century London colleges were originally non-residential. King's College London established a hall for theological students in a house adjacent to the college in 1847, although this only lasted until 1858. University Hall was opened in 1849 by a group of mainly Unitarian Dissenters for students at University College London. This also struggled until taken over by Manchester New College in 1881, after which it flourished for a period but was subsequently closed when that college moved to Oxford in 1890. Bedford College, London, at the time the only women's college in Britain, opened a residence in 1860. College Hall, London was established in 1882 for women students at University College London (which had become mixed a few years earlier) and the London School of Medicine for Women. Like the other London halls (with the exception of the Bedford College residence) this was initially private, but was taken over by the University of London in 1910.

The provincial university colleges that became the redbrick universities were established as non-residential institutions in the 19th century, but later became the universities most closely associated with the development of halls of residence (as distinct from the residential colleges of the older universities). William Whyte identifies four main drivers for the building of halls of residence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These were: firstly, for philanthropic reasons (often linked to religion), such as the Anglican St Anselm Hall (1872/1907) and the Quaker Dalton Hall (1881), both at Owens College (now the University of Manchester); secondly, to provide safe accommodation for female undergraduates, who it was felt at that time could not live in lodgings; thirdly, to attract students from more distant parts of the country, particularly for university colleges in smaller urban areas such as Reading, Exeter and Leicester; and fourthly, because residential provision was becoming seen as an essential element of university life, allowing for the development of community.

In 1925, the University Grants Committee identified the need for more halls of residence as the most urgent of its priorities. A report for the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals in 1948 found that, in 1937–38, the highest percentages of students in colleges and halls of residence (outside of Oxford and Cambridge) were at Exeter (79 per cent), Reading (76 per ent), Southampton (65 per cent), Nottingham (42 per cent), Bristol (36 per cent) and Durham (32 per cent across both Durham and Newcastle divisions); all other universities were below 25 per cent. Funding in the post-war period led to the construction of many new halls, with 67 built between 1944 and 1957. Yet the expansion of higher education in this same period meant that the proportion of students in halls hardly increased: while between 1943 and 1963 the number of students living at home fell from 42 per cent to 20 per cent, the number in private lodgings increased from 33 per cent to 52 per cent, leading to the Robbins Report identifying a need for "a very great increase in the housing provided by universities".

The post-war expansion in halls of residence meant universities looked for relatively cheap and quick construction, turning to functional modern architecture rather than the more traditional designs of earlier halls. Notable architects involved in designing halls of residence in this period included Basil Spence, who designed the University of Southampton's Highfield Campus and the University of Sussex, Denys Lasdun's "five minute university" at the University of East Anglia, including its 'ziggurat' halls of residence, and James Stirling's Andrew Melville Hall at the University of St Andrews, "one of the most significant post-war buildings in Scotland" according to Historic Environment Scotland.

Current halls of residence

Chapter Spitalfields, a private hall of residence in London, England, was the tallest student accommodation building in the world when completed in 2010

Most UK universities provide accommodation in halls for first year students who make a firm acceptance of their offer, although this may not extend to students who enter via clearing. Halls accommodation most commonly consists of shared flats, but rooms may also be arranged 'dorm-style' along corridors. Rooms may be en suite or there may be a shared bathroom for the flat or corridor. Halls may be catered, part-catered or self-catered. Most universities offer single-sex flats within halls and there are a few halls (such as Aberdare Hall at Cardiff University) that are entirely single-sex, but others (such as University College London) offer only mixed accommodation. Most university or college-managed halls of residence are covered by Universities UK and Guild HE's accommodation code of practice.

Private halls of residence, also known as purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA), are available in many university towns and cities. Many are covered by the Accreditation Network UK Code of Standards for Larger Developments, and housing services at some universities (such as the University of London) will only list accredited PBSAs. Many halls are delivered in partnership between educational establishments and private developers, and both codes include the same methodology for defining whether a hall counts as "managed and controlled by an educational establishment", making it a university hall, or is a private hall. Private halls may include facilities such as common rooms, gyms and study spaces. Private halls are often the most expensive accommodation option available in university towns. Some of the companies which have developed such accommodation are based offshore, which has led to concerns about tax avoidance and evasion of sanctions on Russian owners.

In the 2021/22 academic year, 347,680 (16 per cent) of the UK's 2,185,665 students were living in accommodation maintained by their higher education provider (including 55,380 at universities with residential colleges rather than halls) and 200,895 (nine per cent) were in private-sector halls.

Within London, the London Plan that was adopted in 2021 specified that PBSAs had to have a minimum of 35 per cent of rooms rented at 55 per cent or less of the maximum student loan for London. However, this has had the effect of making PBSAs not financially viable in more expensive areas of London, so development of new PBSAs has been primarily in outer London. A majority of rooms, including all of the affordable rooms, also had to be linked to a university via a contractural nomination agreement. As this puts financial risks on the institutions, particularly with uncertainties over international student recruitment, this has led to the four richest institutions (Imperial College London, King's College London, London School of Economics and University College London) dominating the supply of new halls. Analysis of student numbers in London has shown that, as of 2024, 111,000 students are guaranteed a place in halls (including contracted private halls) by their universities but that there were only around 100,000 beds in university halls and private PBSAs. This has led University College London to remove their housing guarantee for incoming students and replace it with a system of priority groups.

Germany

Dormitory in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

In Germany, dormitories are called Studentenwohnheim (plural: Studentenwohnheime). Many of these are run by Studentenwerke (student services organisations), which have around 195,000 spaces across the country in over 1,700 halls. Some Studentenwohnheime are run by a Catholic or Protestant church. Church-run facilities are sometimes single-sex. Studentenwohnheime may be situated on or off campus. They are usually low cost and serve students with limited budget. Flats may be shared with other students or may be studio-type, with en-suite bathroom and kitchen facilities. The rooms themselves are mostly single occupancy.

India

In India the dormitories are called "PG housing" or "student hostels". Even though most of the colleges/universities have hostels on-campus, however in most of the cases it is not enough for the total students enrolled. Majority of the students prefer to stay off-campus in PGs and private hostels as they usually have better amenities and services. For example, in 2015 estimated 1.8 lakh (180,000) students enrolled with Delhi University, there are only about 9,000 seats available in its hostels for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. The university admits an average of 54,000 students every year. Which leaves a majority of students to find accommodation off-campus. This has led to a lot of student hostel or student PG chains to be established near Delhi University.

France

In France dormitories are called chambres universitaires managed by regional public services called CROUS. They are usually located nearby or inside university campuses but many exceptions occur as universities may be settled within cities. Rooms are usually individual, costing around 300US$ per month with a collective kitchen and often collective bathrooms. Some "university cities" are famous such as the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris.

Hong Kong

Universities in Hong Kong are modeled on the British education system, with halls consequently being similar to those in the United Kingdom.

China

In China, dormitories are called "宿舍" (pinyin: sùshè). Dorms for mainland Chinese students usually have four to six students of the same sex living together in one room, with buildings usually being entirely gender-segregated and sometimes intentionally placed at some distance from each other to make inappropriate fraternization between male and female students more difficult. Sleeping hours may be enforced by cutting electricity at a given time, for instance at midnight.

Chinese students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan live separately in their own dorms, as do foreigners. Mainlanders who are fluent in English or any foreign language may live in the foreigner- Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan dorms, assuming they will be a roommate and participate in the foreign student activities, in order to help people get accustomed to mainland Chinese life. The quality of these dorms is usually better than that of mainland student dorms, with rooms either shared between only two people or completely private for a single student. Sexual decency attitudes are laxer than in mainlander dorms, with males and females sharing the same buildings and sometimes corridors (though not rooms). Students are allowed to bring visitors – including mainlanders – of the opposite sex to their rooms. Guests may or may not be allowed to stay overnight, depending on the rules of the dorm. Electricity is usually available at all hours of the day.

Most dormitories for foreigners are run by the Foreign Students' Education Office (a department providing support services to students in China). They may be on campus or off campus. They are usually low cost and serve students.

Skyscraper dormitories

The Sky Plaza in Leeds, England, one of the world's tallest student accommodation blocks

Skyscraper dormitories, termed dormitowers, have included the 93-metre (305 ft) Fenwick Tower at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, built in 1971, the 103-metre (338 ft) Sky Plaza in Leeds, UK, built in 2009, and the 112-metre (367 ft) Chapter Spitalfields in London, built in 2010, all of which held the title of the world's tallest purely student accommodation building when built. Some taller buildings include student accommodation among other uses, including the 132-metre (433 ft) Het Strijkijzer in The Hague, Netherlands, the 143-metre (469 ft) Roosevelt Tower at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and the 144-metre (472 ft) Capri at Marymount Manhattan College in New York. The 33 Beekman Street tower at Pace University in New York, completed in 2015, is also claimed to be the worlds tallest college residence, at 104 metres (340 ft). Altus House in Leeds, UK, built in 2021, is described as the tallest student accommodation building in northern Europe at 116 metres (381 ft).

The proposed Munger Hall dormitory at the University of California, Santa Barbara would have been the largest university dormitory in the world with 4,500 students over 12 floors. The building, nicknamed "Dormzilla", was cancelled in 2023 after controversy over the design, including that 94% of the rooms would be windowless and that there were only two exits.

Hall councils and staffing

Hall councils

At some institutes, each residence hall has its own hall council. Where they exist, such individual councils are usually part of a larger organization called, variously, residence hall association, resident students' association, or junior common room committee which typically provides funds and oversees the individual building council. In the US, these student-led organizations are typically connected at a national level by the National Association of College and University Residence Halls. Collectively, these hall councils plan social and educational events, and voice student needs to their respective administration.

Staffing

In the United States, university residence halls are normally staffed by a combination of both students and professional residence life staff. Student staff members, Resident Assistants, or community advisers act as liaisons, counselors, mediators and policy enforcers. The student staff is supervised by a graduate student or a full-time residence life professional, sometimes known as the hall director. Staff members frequently arrange programming activities to help residents learn about social and academic life during their college life.

Connaught Hall, London, a University of London hall of residence

In the United Kingdom, halls often run a similar setup to that in the U.S, although the resident academic responsible for the hall is known by the term of "warden" and may be supported by a team of vice-wardens, sub-wardens or senior-members; forming the SCR (Senior Common Room). These are often students or academic staff at the relevant university/college. Many UK halls also have a JCR (Junior Common Room) committee, usually made up of second year students who stayed in that hall during their first year.

The facilities in the hall are often managed by an individual termed the Bursar. Residence Halls may have housekeeping staff to maintain the cleanliness of common rooms including lobbies, corridors, lounges, and bathrooms. Students are normally required to maintain the cleanliness of their own rooms and private or semi-private bathrooms, when offered.

Other dormitories

A seminary dormitory in Vagharshapat, Armavir Province, Armenia

Military dormitories

At most U.S. military installations, dormitories have replaced barracks. Much new construction includes private bathrooms, but most unaccompanied housing as of 2007 still features bathrooms between pairs of rooms. Traditional communal shower facilities, typically one per floor, are now considered substandard and are being phased out.

U.S. military dormitory accommodations are generally intended for two junior enlisted single personnel per room, although in most cases this is slowly being phased out in favor of single occupancy in accordance with newer Department of Defense standards.

All branches of the U.S. military except the Air Force still refer to these dormitory-style accommodations as "barracks". The Air Force, in contrast, refers to all unaccompanied housing as "dormitories", including open-bay barracks used for basic training that house dozens per room, as well as unaccompanied housing for senior ranking personnel, which resemble apartments and are only found in a select number of overseas locations.

Sleeping dormitories

In the US, China, UK, Ireland and Canada, a dormitory usually refers to a room containing more than one bed. Examples are found in British boarding schools and many rooming houses such as hostels. CADs, or cold-air dormitories, are found in multi-level rooming houses such as fraternities, sororities, and cooperative houses. In CADs and in hostels, the room typically has very few furnishings except for beds. Such rooms can contain anywhere from three to 50 beds (though such very large dormitories are rare except perhaps as military barracks). Such rooms provide little or no privacy for the residents, and very limited storage for personal items in or near the beds. Cold-air dorms get their names from the common practice of keeping the windows open year-round, even in winter. The practice emerged based on the theory that circulation and cold air minimizes the spread of disease. Some communal bedrooms keep the name cold-air dorms or cold dorms despite having modern heating or cooling.

Company dormitories

Dormitory of Nanjing Shanghai Meishan Company in China

While the practice of housing employees in company-owned dormitories has dwindled, several companies continue this practice in the U.S. and other countries.

Cast members in the Disney College Program at the Walt Disney World Resort have the opportunity to meet and live with other cast members within their housing complexes in Lake Buena Vista, FL. In the Netherlands, the law forbids companies to offer housing to their employees, because the government wants to prevent people who have just lost their job adding to their stressful situation by having to search for new housing. In Japan, many of the larger companies as well as some of the ministries still offer to their newly graduated freshmen a room in a dormitory. A room in such a dormitory often comes with a communal cook (for the men) or rooms with furnished kitchen blocks (for the women). Usually the employees pay a very small amount of money to enable the men (especially) to save money to buy a house when they get married.

Prison dormitories

Housing units in prisons that house more than the one or two inmates normally held in cells are referred to as "dormitories" as well. Housing arrangements can vary widely. In some cases, dormitories in low-security prisons may almost resemble their academic counterparts, with the obvious differences of being locked at night, being administered by jailers, and subject to stricter institutional rules and fewer amenities. In other institutions, dormitories may be large rooms, often converted from other purposes such as gymnasiums in response to overcrowding, in which hundreds of prisoners have bunks and lockers.

Boarding school dormitories

Dormitory at The Armidale School, New South Wales, 1898

High school dormitory in Sabah, Malaysia

Boarding schools generally have dormitories as resident halls at least for junior or younger children around age 4 to 9 years of age. In classic British boarding schools these typically have bunk beds that have traditionally come to be associated with boarding schools. The Department for Children, Schools and Families, in conjunction with the Department of Health of the United Kingdom, has prescribed guidelines for dormitories in boarding schools. These regulations come under what is called as the National Boarding Standards.

The National Boarding Standards have prescribed a minimum floor area or living space required for each student and other aspects of basic facilities. The minimum floor area of a dormitory accommodating two or more students is defined as the number of students sleeping in the dormitory multiplied by 4.2 m², plus 1.2 m². A minimum distance of 0.9 m should also be maintained between any two beds in a dormitory, bedroom or cubicle. If students have individual sleeping cubicles, each student must be provided with a window and a minimum floor area of 5.0 m². A bedroom for a single student should have a floor area of at least 6.0 m² and have a window. Sleeping accommodation should be separated by age group and gender. Dormitories should also provide a shower or bath for each ten students and a toilet or urinal for each five students.

Floating dormitories

Main article: Dormitory ship

A floating dormitory is a water-borne vessel that provides, as its primary function, living quarters for students enrolled at an educational institution. A floating dormitory functions as a conventional land-based dormitory in all respects except that the living quarters are aboard a floating vessel. A floating dormitory is most often moored in place near the host educational facility and is not used for water transport. Dormitory ships may also refer to vessels that provide water-borne housing in support of non-academic enterprises such as off-shore oil drilling operations. Other vessels containing living quarters for students as ancillary support to the vessel's primary function – such as for providing maritime or other training given aboard the vessel – are more appropriately categorized as training ships.

Notable among floating dormitories is SS Stevens, a 473-foot, 14,893-ton ship operated by Stevens Institute of Technology, a technological university, in Hoboken, New Jersey. From 1968 to 1975, Stevens served as the floating dormitory for as many as 150 students of the institute.

See also

• Barracks
• Hostel
• List of dormitory buildings
• Public housing
• Residential college
• Student Village (disambiguation)

External links

• Association of College and University Housing Officers - International
• The Evolution of the College Dorm