Fraternity Row at San Diego State University
Combining housing and activities centers for eight separate fraternities, the new Fraternity Housing Complex at San Diego State University is a unique project. Its revolved largely around the objective of maintaining individual identity for each of the fraternities, while achieving economies inherent in shared housing and support facilities on a dense site.
Our solution was to organize student apartments in a four-story structure at the center of the site, which is configured to define individual activity courtyards and “turf” for each fraternity. This housing block forms the backbone of the complex and is accessible from four principal entries that lead to individual two-story chapter houses, each of which relates to an activity courtyard for a given fraternity. The chapter house provides the fraternity with its own individual image on the street and accommodates chapter business and social activities.
The project was programmed and designed through a series of interactive workshops with both undergraduate and alumni fraternity members, as well as multiple work sessions with SDSU Foundation staff and members of the community at large. While each chapter house is designed to meet specific needs of an individual organization, many common goals and objectives evolved from these workshops and provided the overall direction for the design concept.
