Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Please, Come Right on in.

College Campuses are always doing their best to increase security for their students in their dorms.  Some require a lock and key.  Some require punching in a code.  Furman requires students to swipe their ID to get into any resident building and revokes that ability when students leave the resident halls to the apartments. This to me, seems like the securest way for students to feel safe in the dorm but a lot of this swiping goes to waste with the way that the buildings are setup.  For example in the lakeside dormitories near McBee hall we have this:

There are literal foot holes in the brick that allow even the most inept climber to make their way onto the roofing next to the balconies.  Once on the balcony, one can simply open the door and enter swipe or not.  This is the case with several of the residence halls.  Blackwell, Poteat, Geer, and Manly have not especially difficult ways of being scaled or climbed to be entered.  This only comes to mind because it is a privacy issue based around security of living space. There is no way that these places can be supervised all the time, so the only solution would be altering the design of the building or the doors.  Cleverly, the door on the balcony of Gambrell (the other side of lakeside) is locked from the outside disallowing any unauthorized entry.

DEsigning off,

Ahmed Mustafa