Highland Residence Hall is conceived around an urban "arroyo" or major stormwater passage. The design precedent is the latitude of the building: 32 degrees N. The design team looked at models of indigenous housing at this latitude around the world.Highland Residence Hall will provide 369 beds to accommodate first-year students. Located on an urban site next to Wildcat Stadium, it inherited a significant flooding problem, which is being solved with a series of tiered landscape basins to help process and clean stormwater. The orientation of the building is around these basins, which mimic a natural "arroyo" or desert water feature. The building wraps around a central courtyard, fronted by community spaces which have eye-level vistas into the surrounding vegetation.Each section of the building is divided into "communities" and each "community" is set at a unique angle on the site. The fissures between provide areas for informal study and conversation.
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