Basic Stats

Built in: the fifties, a bad time for architecture
Residents: 250
Houses: Henderson, Tufts, Thompson, Shorey

The University House System says:

Pierce Tower is a modern ten-story brick building with an elevator. It houses one of the three residential campus dining halls. All houses are co-ed and four-class but most residents are first- or second-year students. Rooms on higher floors have excellent views of campus to the south and Chicago's skyline to the north. Student rooms and study rooms are clustered around a two-story house lounge with a kitchenette and fireplace. Other building amenities include a computer lab and study on the top floor, a second floor game room, a terrace for barbecues, a darkroom and a student-run snack bar.

The Chicago Maroon said in 2003:

You have to have been a Pierce resident to understand the joys that make up Pierce living. For over 40 years, this venerable dormitory has blended in like a sore thumb on the corner of 55th Street and South University Avenue, a study in '60s angularity that should never have been undertaken in the first place. If a dorm such as the Shoreland is Wrigley Field, then Pierce is the Metrodome: modern for its time, but now somewhat unsightly and garish. But just as Minnesotans begrudglingly salute their Twins' stadium, Pierce residents, past and present, appreciate the dorm and all its quirks. Pierce has often been called the most social dorm on campus, a claim which is founded on the residence hall's prison-like design. Pierce consists of 10 floors, eight with student rooms, which are divided into four houses.

Almost all first-years are assigned to doubles that would make a Shorelandite guffaw. However, most upperclassmen are able to snag singles, some the size of a normal double. What Pierce lacks in privacy, it makes up for in group revelry. The floors are co-ed, as are the bathrooms in practice (except for the showers), although they are technically single-sex. There tends to be a lot of activity in the halls, as claustrophobic students are squeezed out of their rooms and into the common spaces. Perhaps because of the packed-in living arrangements and the unusually high level of oxygen-sharing, there is no smoking allowed in Pierce.

As far as convenience goes, you really can't beat Pierce. There's a dining hall on the first floor, and the dorm is only two blocks from the Quads. In what other dorm can you shuffle downstairs, have a hearty breakfast, and still make it to class on time, all within a half-hour?