Laundry in the Dorms:a little too easy?

Most people can say that a laundry room is, well, a room when laundry gets done. Simple enough. Yet, this seems to be radically different here in the dormitories of a college campus. How? Why? That is exactly is what I would like to know. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of why the laundry room is so weird here.

The only sign in the basement hallway.

AND it is advertising a lounge area on top of a laundry room.

Coincidence? I doubt it.

This is the guys side lounge. It has big, comfy couches, a few tables and a television.

This is the girls side lounge. Notice there are no couches, but only less-comfortable looking chairs and tables.

So according to the spaces, while waiting on laundry, guys like to be comfy and watch TV, while the ladies work on homework. Is that fair to assume?

Throughout the laundry area, there are a lot of random pictures on the walls. There are quite large in person. This makes you think, are we in college or elementary school. I understand what goes on in a laundry room; I don’t need cheesy visuals.

Now on to the actual machines. First the washers. The thing that sticks out the most is how each machine has instructions. Most machines don’t include this, but again, college kids obviously don’t know how to do laundry, right?

The washing machines. Finally something simple!AND no instructions!

Just kidding.

I’d like to think, being a college

student, that I could work a dryer all by

myself without instructions. I’m

beginning to wonder if people believe kids can do their

own laundry.

And once you are done with all your laundry, there are folding tables right there for you to use. How convenient!

Finally an actual reason to stay around the laundry room without subliminal messages! (like the whole lounge idea)

And they think people our age aren’t intelligent…

It says out of order.

Now that you completed your laundry, even though you were told what to do the entire way, its time to head back to the dorm. But wait, after all that work you’re thirty! Well for you impulse buyer, there is a coke machine right inside the laundry room!

A very smart idea. An automatic door for when your hands are full of laundry.

UnnecessaryNecessary

The college laundry room, is it too simple to use? Do things in the space influence what happens?

The design of the entire laundry area defiantly influence how it is to be used. When you are not doing laundry, you are encouraged to hang out and stay in the area. You are told exactly how to use the machines and have large representations of these things on the walls.

While this isn’t a reflection of every single dorm laundry area, this is the one that I use all the time. Even though it is incredibly simple to use, would I want it to change? That I can’t answer. Hopefully the questions I brought up will help to answer these questions in time.