The final touches are being added to Cal Poly’s newest addition, the yakʔitʸutʸu living community, which is set to be ready for students to move in by Sept. 14.
Cal Poly worked with the Northern Chumash to create the yakʔitʸutʸu community, which includes seven residence halls ranging from three to five stories, all named after sites along the Central Coast as well as animals in the Northern Chumash dialect.
“They don’t have kitchens or anything in their rooms, they just have a small refrigerator. This is to encourage students to be more social and this is also why we do not have any single rooms,” Sadie Rogers, the graphic designer for the living community, said.
The buildings also include a communal all-gender bathroom with shared toilets and showers. The outside wall of each bathroom is transparent for safety reasons.
According to Rogers, Cal Poly is late to the notion of all-gendered restrooms. Most universities have already changed their residence hall bathrooms to all-gender bathrooms in order to be more inclusive of all residents.
Each building in the yakʔitʸutʸu community also has a built-in wetsuit washing station, something numerous students had asked for.
“We have what’s called an inner housing council, it’s basically the student voice, so they bring recommendations to us. One of the big recommendations they had for us was adding a wetsuit washing station, so we did integrate that into PCV and Sierra Madre outside, but in yakʔitʸutʸu, every laundry room has a wetsuit washing station,” Rogers said.
yakʔitʸutʸu is the first residential building built specifically for first-year students on Cal Poly’s campus since 1973, when Sierra Madre was built.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify that each building includes double and quad rooms. No triple rooms are offered.