BOSTON-– SGA Architect and Senior Designer David Enriquez, LEED® AP BD+C will speak about the latest Student Housing trends at the Boston Real Estate Times’ annual Academic Facilities and Student Housing Summit—virtual this year—on March 24, 2021.
Mr. Enriquez will discuss single bedrooms, flexible amenity spaces, technologically wired facilities for Gen Z students and reduced carbon footprint, among other topics. SGA is a Boston and New York City-based national award-winning architecture, interior design, planning, branded environments and virtual design and construction firm.
To register for virtual zoom summit, please click here.
Mr. Enriquez brings 20 years of experience in several different markets to his role at SGA, where he provides creative direction for commercial and higher-education commissions. He enjoys the diversity of his projects, which encompass master plans, university residences, and corporate offices. A key focal point of his work is sustainability, which Mr. Enriquez views as paramount. He recognizes that architecture can have a positive impact on the environment by incorporating the latest advances in energy efficiency.
Mr. Enriquez’s first hands-on experience in sustainable design came early in his career, at FXFowle (now FX Collaborative) in New York City, a firm that, like SGA, was an early architect of LEED-certified buildings. His career progressed at such other distinguished firms as Cetra Ruddy, where he concentrated on high-end residential, and where he worked with developers on supertall structures in the center of New York City. H earned a Master of Architecture from Syracuse University.
This is what you will learn at the summit:
- Inadequate Campus Capacity: To provide beds that meet social-distancing or quarantine safety standards, schools situated in urban areas have created temporary single bedrooms by renting rooms in nearby empty hotels. But as vaccinations continue, the hospitality industry will experience increased demand, making these rented beds no longer available. On-campus capacity will be inadequate to house all students in what would be ‘the new normal’.
- Returning Student Body: Students that did take virtual classes during quarantine closures will want to return to campus- what type of facilities and real estate will be needed to meet the changing demand?
- The Time to Start Is Now: New student resident halls take between two and three years from planning to occupancy, so the best time for institutions to begin evaluating their decisions and their available alternatives is today.
- Budgetary Constraints: Well-endowed institutions have the financial footing to either pay for or loan against a new residence hall, or to raise the needed amount of funds to support the new infrastructure. But how will schools with less secure financial footing afford it? How will institutions pay for these urgently needed student housing COVID-19 safety changes?
- Accounting for Future Students’ Needs: As the priorities of subsequent generations change, the future of student housing should adjust accordingly: the preferred living arrangements of students include security, equity in ethnic diversity and gender, a balance between private spaces that foster independence and larger spaces that encourage social mixing and bonding, and sustainability in the face of a changing climate.
- Balancing Students’ Needs Against Budgetary Necessity: Administrations have to balance the desired student experience with the very real limitations of budgets and schedules, both of which must be optimized to fit within project constraints.
- Goodbye, Roommates: Necessitated by the COVID-19 crisis, single rooms are becoming the rule. Suites with contained bathrooms and kitchens provide the highest degree of safety from the hazards of group toilets and dining, where social distancing is not always possible.
Here the schedule of the academic real estate summit:
Date: March 24, 2021
Time: 9:30 am to 11:00 am
Venue: Zoom (links will emailed to you after you register.)
