Escher Cooperative House

[1] The only North Campus-located cooperative, it is the ICC's largest community with over 150 spaces of residents and 9 separately themed "suites."

During the 1950s, the University of Michigan responded to post-war growth by developing North Campus, ensuring future demand for nearby student housing.

According to Luther Buchele, the shaggy ICC delegation that traveled to Chicago to accept the loan underscored this unprecedented level of student activity:[3]One middle aged woman in the HUD office noted the long hair on John Atchaz, John Gourlay, Rex Chisholm, and Smokey Geyer.

I then informed her that HUD had indeed made such a loan and she looked sour.Tampold & Wells, an architectural firm that had designed co-ops at several Canadian universities, laid out a complex consisting of eighteen interconnected "houses" arranged around the crest of the hill the ICC had reserved.

The names of the houses reflected the social, political, and literary interests of members at the time: Sinclair was named for then-imprisoned Ann Arbor poet and activist John Sinclair, Russell for pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russell, Zapata for Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and Bag End for the home of Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien's Shire.

To address rising vacancies and turnover, the board voted in 1984 to make the building's large rooms optional singles, instead of assuming that each would have two students.

Consultant Jim Jones, who had worked with other large houses at the Inter-Cooperative Council of Austin, attributed the problems to the limited time of the co-op population, which consisted almost entirely of graduate students.

Today the two basement kitchens are still referred to as Renaissance and O'Keeffe, and the nine sections of the building that were once separate houses are now "suites" bearing the same names.

In keeping with the geographical placement of Escher house, residents are primarily students from the schools of art & design, architecture and urban planning, engineering, and music, theatre, and dance.

[6] A large population of O'Keeffe consists of graduate students in the aforementioned schools as well as in other disciplines, although there are also long-time residents that have lived there for over two decades.

The house itself tends to be quieter than the other cooperatives on the University of Michigan's Central Campus, due to the older average age of members.

The house is composed of nine suites named after historical figures or literary works: Trantor Mir, Walden III, John Sinclair, Bag End, Emiliano Zapata, Valhalla, Bertrand Russell, Karma, and Falstaff.

[9] Each suite houses approximately fifteen to twenty members, although the number may be lower during the spring and summer months when many of the university's operations slow significantly.

Work for the house includes cooking, cleaning the basement or the kitchen, taking care of the grounds, and/or holding officer positions.