Young Harris College
Senior Village
Young Harris, GA
Intended to promote more independent living as a transition to post-graduate life, the Village is conceived as a cluster of cottages arranged around a "village green." Each cottage comprises five four-bedroom apartments, each with its own kitchen, laundry, living area and porches.
Following the successful completion of Enotah Hall, a 200-bed residence hall designed to serve the College's first junior class, Young Harris College hired the team of Lord Aeck Sargent and Hardin Construction to design its next phase of student housing, the Senior Village. The site is bounded by a residential street to the south and a creek to the north. The project takes advantage of the 40-foot slope from the street to the creek by arranging the cottages in two tiers. The upper tier is organized to address the street in a manner consistent with the neighboring single-family houses, with two apartments located on the first floor and two more on the second floor, each of which is accessed via a front porch. Each of these units also has a private back porch overlooking the village green, which is located one story below street level. The lower tier "fronts" the village green. It is organized more loosely, following the contours generated by the creek bed. The front porches overlook the creek. An elevated terrace provides the fifth apartment with usable outdoor space above the elevation of the creek and provides additional privacy from the wooded nature trail that runs alongside it.
The green itself is organized into three discernible lawns. A "great lawn" shared by eight of the cottages provides an open space for informal student use. A smaller lawn, shared by four cottages, includes a bocci court and horseshoe pit. The entry lawn, which connects the village to the campus, has a natural slope that can be used as seating for events held in the Village Common building, which has a covered porch for special events. The terraces overlooking the creek include grills and large picnic tables for outdoor dining. The Common Building includes seminar rooms and support spaces, a resident director's apartment and office, as well as two student residences on its upper floor.