EDITORIAL: A well-designed proposal

Planned renovations to the Quad promise to provide the college houses with the infrastructure they need. The University's plans to do just that -- beginning with a $50-$100 million plan to overhaul the Quadrangle -- are therefore a welcome sign that Penn is committed to making all the necessary moves to give the college houses a fair shot at success. Rather than fighting the Quad's structure, Penn has merged the existing four houses into three, each of which makes geographical sense. The commitment to maintain separate entranceways, courtyards and mailrooms for each college house -- including reopening an entrance off Hamilton Walk -- is also an important step toward establishing distinct identities. The planned interior renovations -- designed to open up more communal space -- also strike us as well-planned and necessary to the establishment of house identities. The Quad's elongated structure makes the project a difficult one but we eagerly anticipate the results. Indeed, the Quad's layout -- rooms strung out along extended corridors -- makes spaces like music and seminar rooms, computer labs and common areas even more crucial to establishing residential communities. Ultimately, the success of the renovations will be judged by those who live in the redone buildings. And so, we applaud the stated intention of administrators to model the renovations around "student life-rhythms." Involving students at all stages in the planning process is obviously crucial, and so we are pleased to hear Penn administrators affirm their commitment to doing so. Among the issues we urge administrators to consider are late-night gate access, accessible vending machines and keeping community spaces -- such as libraries and computer labs -- open as much as possible. In many ways, however, the plans already reflect careful consideration of the types of comforts students have long demanded. Providing air conditioning and increasing the number of private bathrooms both promise to make the Quad more attractive to upperclassmen. And smaller changes, like locating garbage containers more discretely, reflect a degree of attention to the smaller touches that will do much to make the Quad even more livable.