What happens when RISD artists make an old bank home?

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 19, 2006

BY MICHAEL MELLO
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Graduate student Kate Copeland is making better art this year and credits, in part, the intoxicating view from her 11th-floor loft at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Through two large multipaned windows, the 27-year-old Wisconsin native can look out from her desk across an urban landscape more commonly seen from high-priced condominiums than student housing.

Copeland is studying printmaking and rents a single loft unit in a new residence RISD opened in September, in an 89-year-old downtown bank building. Designed in the Italian Renaissance style, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Unlike drab, cramped student housing still found on many campuses, the apartments were designed to meet the specific needs of students -- in RISD's case, artists. That includes a new furniture line and apartments that combine living and work spaces.

Copeland likes the privacy and solitude of a single unit with its own bathroom and kitchen. But what she most appreciates is the creative jolt she gets from unobstructed views of the landscape along the Providence River and on the East Side.

"I'm often sitting here drawing . . . the relationships between the buildings," she said.

The new housing, which includes 197 units for about 500 students, is RISD's first dorm on the downtown side of the river. The project was years in the making, including meetings between the architect, students and school officials.

The resulting plan focused on three primary student needs, says Brian Janes, RISD's director of residence life.

First was providing as much space as possible in the units.

"(RISD students) require more space," Janes said. "They have lots of large . . . objects, canvases, lots of material beyond books or a laptop."

The next consideration was art students' often unique "visual sensitivity," he said. That meant a neutral decor and opportunities for students to tailor natural light to their needs.

The third issue is common to all college students: proximity.

RISD had been planning to develop new housing elsewhere when a developer approached the school three years ago about renovating the former Rhode Island Hospital Trust building, located at 15 Westminster St.

RISD already had the rights to a lower portion of the building, where it was planning a new library that's due to open later this year.

The school jumped at the opportunity to have student housing above the library, in the heart of the commercial district.

"This building is very convenient to a lot of classrooms along the river," Janes said. The location also expands the RISD community by bringing more students downtown, which can be intimidating to some underclassmen.

RISD bought the renovated property about six months ago.

The building, called 15 West, is just a stone's throw across the river from other RISD buildings.

Three distinct designs -- alcove suites, apartments and lofts -- allow students to pick units that best meet their needs.

Alcove suites have two nooks and a common area. Many alcoves are separated from each other by a common kitchen and bathroom, the latter split with a shower, sinks and a toilet in two different spaces.

Students share a kitchen and bathroom and arrange each alcove to suit themselves and perhaps a roommate.

"For artists, the bedroom is their work space," said Nader Tehrani, an architect with Office dA, in Boston, who helped design the units. "Quality of light and openness are important to produce the effect of flexibility."

The large windows provide not only stunning views but ample natural light for students to work, or dream, by.

The nooks can be used for work areas or as bedrooms.

RISD faculty also designed furniture for the dorms. They include beds set high so that students can store dressers, work materials and other items under them. Some of the beds can be flipped over to be set at a standard height.

The beds also have a sheet of wood, rather than springs, under the mattresses. This allows students to keep large drawings flat, under the mattresses.

The 13-piece, all-wood Sage line of furniture includes desks with extra-wide drawers. Chairs have seats that are convex, rather than concave, designed to allow students to sit longer at their desks.

Jenny Wu, 19, and her fellow sophomore roommate Megan Williams, 20, think the new furniture is okay.

What they and other students in the alcove units, including Crissy Cook, 20, like most is the freedom to design their own spaces.

Wu, an industrial design major from California, stores her dresser, suitcase, drawings and supplies under the bed.

Williams, a furniture-design major from New Hampshire, uses her dresser as a table near a desk.

Cook, a sophomore industrial design student from Texas, has foam, wood pieces and other work material stuffed under her bed, in a nook overflowing with clothes.

For her, the carpeted open space in her light-filled room is a personal workshop.

"I build stuff all the time," she said, pointing to a battery-operated, wooden robot she'd recently pieced together. "I just explode onto the floor with whatever pieces I need."

Williams also likes the feeling of living in an apartment building, rather than a rowdy dorm.

"When I come back to this environment, I feel more rested," she said.

Students aren't allowed to paint the walls, but they can hang things on them.

While the walls in Williams' alcove are nearly bare, an eclectic mix of posters, photos, art and even a hubcap are hung in 19-year-old Hayley Morris's suite. The sophomore film and animation student shares a more traditional apartment suite in which the sleeping areas are separate rooms.

"We couldn't believe it was this big," she said, standing in a common area set up like a living room, but with typical student touches, including a mattress tucked in one corner and parking tickets belonging to a roommate that are tacked on a wall.

With its own kitchen and bathroom, the design allows students to be as self-sufficient as they choose.

"You feel more grown up in a way," Morris said.

The price for such freedom and privacy isn't cheap.

Rents for the school year range from $4,950 per student for alcove suites to $14,850 for a two-bedroom loft, which can be shared.

Janes says the rents reflect market rates at the time the units were being planned. The price includes workshops for students to paint and work on other messy projects and laundry rooms, 24-hour security and access to a first-floor cafe.

Students are on their own for parking, though they can use RISD lots at night and on weekends.

With 15 West at near capacity, students, and their families, appear willing to pay the price.

"Students spend so much time in their studios . . . the spaciousness of the rooms, the tall windows and high ceilings mean so much" to them, said Copeland, a community assistant who helps resolve resident issues, which she says have been few.

"This is the nicest place I'm ever going to live in," said Copeland, gazing out at the rooftops below.