Chouinard Hall

If you’ve seen one college dorm, you haven’t seen them all. Chouinard Hall at the California Institute of The Arts is an interesting contraption. Designed and built in the late 60’s early 70’s the building is a marvel /​monster of modern architecture, depending on your views of the period. The building shows remnants of it’s original design intent, but over the years of hard use by CalArts students, it’s been stripped of most of it’s character. Still, with a little money and attention, it has great potential.
Now for the useful info.
Rooms are fairly large for dorm standards, most sleeping two, three at most. The majority of spaces are arranged as a «suite» with a shared bathroom connecting two rooms. There are the random «freak» corridors that connect three rooms to one bathroom, as well as rooms that share bathrooms with no-​one.
In a addition to space, C.H. also features a basic gym accessible with a small deposit, a sauna, a snack-​bar-​ish-​loungy-​thing known as Mom’s Café and… drumroll please… the famous Clothing Optional Pool which is heated at random intervals throughout the school year.
There’s also two pre-​paid card-​op laundry facilities and spotted TV lounges throughout the building. They’re convenient.
Regardless of the cable and wifi in each room, I still could only bring myself to rate the dorms with three stars. Not because I think they’re «Meh», but because I think they have serious potential. Each year new improvements are made, remodels take place and old furniture is tossed for new. I’m trapped here for another two years, and hope that in that time I find reason to raise my rating.