Mary Holmes
College Dormitories
West Point, Mississippi

Mary Holmes College reached out to Davis Brody Bond Founding Partner to design this quietly groundbreaking project, which brought the humanist principles of public housing of the time (indoor-outdoor connections, flexible gathering spaces, freedom of movement) to its rural campus setting. To accommodate the aggressive schedule required by the College, design and construction documents for this student housing project were produced in four months and within a limited budget. To meet the established milestone, the dormitories were designed to contain repetitive parts, stair core, bedroom wing, and a central living room. A central square of four living rooms was provided with four three-bedroom suites at its corners. This basic H-shaped element was then repeated to frame the housing complex.

In addition to the design of a practical and economical layout, the design of the dormitories took into account the social organization of residential life as a primary determinant of physical form. Thus, each student is a member of a suite; each suite in turn is related directly to three others; and at the next scale to the whole complex. Configuring the bedrooms and living rooms at a half-level to each other, another level of choice is available. Neither the closets nor the furniture were built in, thereby offering each student the chance to shape his or her individual space.

The network of paths, corridors and spaces of the dormitory group became an open fabric with several routes available, maximizing each student’s freedom of choice and association.