Perched on a plateau high above the city of Easton, Lafayette College is a small liberal arts college with a student enrollment of approximately 2,000. As part of an administrative goal to provide all undergraduates with access to on-campus housing, the college retained RTKL for planning and design services to evaluate existing residential facilities and develop a master plan that addressed the campus’ residential space needs.

RTKL began the process by interviewing students, faculty and the facility and administrative leadership of the school. From these discussions, critical perceptual issues were identified as key to the success of the project. These include scale and character of the new residence halls, developing strong linkages between new and existing campus precincts so as to maintain a unified sense of campus, and student and administration preferences for housing type and room configuration. RTKL generated a series of options that portrayed different planning approaches, suggested appropriate phasing strategies, and generated different program tabulations. Finally, RTKL provided critical cost and schedule analysis to Lafayette’s Board of Trustees enabling the board to determine the solution that best fit its needs.