Barely a minute’s walk from the SOCH lies an alternative for social events: the Ten-man suite in Currier House, named quite simply after its housing capacity.Composed of ten singles around a large common room, the Ten-man is also known as a very social suite, frequently hosting house parties on weekends and serving as “Heaven’” during Halloween’s Heaven and Hell Dance.

Featuring a private roof, kitchen, and elevator, the Ten-man condenses the majority of its open space into a single area. The suite still has additional space sectioned off from the large common room in the form of bedrooms, which differentiates the common room from a space like the SOCH’s event hall. The Ten-man seniors see their suite as a social space for the house and thus do their best to host parties whenever they can.“

Obviously this is a space where we live, but it’s also a gift we’ve been given,” Louis R. Evans ’13, a resident of the Ten-man, explains. “We don’t want our space to go unused.”

Though the Ten-man lacks the SOCH’s bells and whistles, the architecturally simple space achieves its purpose. “The best part about the room that makes it useful for socializing is that all the rooms are directly off of it,” another Ten-man resident, Christian A. Rivera ’13, explains. “You have to interact with people while you’re here.”

Remus also points out that the nearby singles would be attractive to some at parties. “Everyone wants somewhere to run off to at some point,” she says. “So the bedrooms would probably be an advantage during parties. Could be bad for the people living in there, though.”

Though potentially having your bedroom invaded is less than appealing, the seniors living in the Belltower suite of Pforzheimer House are proud to take on the burden. They have inherited more than a bent spire and the decorative lights that spell out ‘Pfoho’ in the common room of the top floor.

“You’re doing it for Pfoho, in a sense,” Frankie K. Wong ’13 says of living in the Belltower. “We keep the house running.”The Belltower, as the largest suite in the Harvard dormitories, has historically been seen as an inclusive, highly social suite. With 12 bedrooms, three common rooms, two stories, and a built-in bar on the top floor, it comes as no surprise that the Belltower is packed full on many a Friday night.

The features that make the Belltower so appealing to the student body go beyond the possibilities offered by the bar. The layout of the suite, as well as the additions and alterations made by the current residents, is suggestive of a typical nightclub. The bottom floor, furnished mainly by futons, can serve as a socializing area or a place to take a break from the bursting up per floor, where people usually dance or crowd around the bar.

The suite is cleverly designed to make it feel even more spacious than it already is. Long, narrow hallways give the impression that it is a farther walk between rooms than it actually is; a large mirror that spans the wall behind the bar almost seems to double the size of the common room on the top floor. Though that room in particular becomes very cramped very quickly, this actually can be attractive to partygoers. If it is too spacious, a room can make partygoers feel isolated and overexposed to other students. As Remus noted, partygoers typically appreciate places to hide. At parties, it is possible that students take an amount of comfort in the fact that they cannot be seen and observed by every other attendee. But Belltower residents are quick to point out that a large part of the appeal of the suite is its versatility. The suite has in the past hosted stein clubs, movie screenings, and various events for house and school organizations.

“Everybody here knows the Belltower, and it’s a house space,” George X. Fu ’13 says. “We have a very close-knit house community and part of that is that everyone hangs out in the Belltower. It has traditionally been a place where the whole house gathers.”

Even during a party, the dynamic of the suite can be changed to accomodate different events simply by informally sectioning off rooms and rearranging furniture. “The setup we have here is really conducive to being able to throw just about anything we want,” Fu says.

Versatility seems to be a common theme in discussion of social space. The Belltower and the SOCH in particular count it among their chief merits. Yet, there is something undeniably different about the atmosphere of these spaces. The Belltower can serve many purposes, but it can be completely reconfigured depending on the occasion; the SOCH, designed with versatility in mind, functions differently. “The SOCH 1st floor was designed with an eye for the synergy between flexible spaces filled with lots of great amenities such as the game tables, video games and TVs, AV equipment, and a variety of quality furniture and both programmed and casual use by students,” Walo wrote. Perhaps there is a cost to synergy; for partygoers who need the illusion of anonymity and liberation in order to let loose, this atmosophere could be dispelled by the sight of campus organization offices and Purel dispensers in the SOCH.

DEAD PARTY ANIMALS

No one can swipe into a final club or any of the Greek houses. When a party is being thrown in one of the brick and mortar houses on Mt. Auburn St., it’s not always guaranteed that a friendly Harvard student will be allowed in. The interior of these places can be less than seductive; the stuffy basement of the Sigma Chi house tends to smell overwhelmingly of stale beer on Thursday nights. It can be unsettling to party while preserved animals which rest on some of the final clubs’ walls stare glassily into the room. Despite this, lines of students form outside these houses every weekend.

The exclusivity itself is a substantial factor, but aspects of their design or architecture actually contribute to their appeal as social spaces. A certain sense of intimacy can be found in many of the houses: after all, they still serve as living spaces for brothers or club members. As Remus told me earlier, heavily divided space, offering a plethora of dimly lit nooks and crannies, is attractive to college students looking to let loose; Sigma Chi is no exception.