Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking about those weird squiggly benches that don’t have any desks on them. Some might criticize those benches as “something that looked real good in a render before they remodeled the library, but in reality hold essentially no actual value,” but those people would be wrong. Think about all the times that you have gone to Snell. Now think about how many people you’ve seen using those benches. That’s right, basically no one ever sits at those benches. This isn’t because the benches are useless, but because there are not enough of them.
Haters might argue that the benches are “oddly shaped” and that they “have no back support,” but they would be mistaken. After all, they are made of fabric and therefore must be comfortable. Furthermore, while they may lack enough tables, they make up for it with their charmingly small round mini desks that are built into them. While the inbuilt desks may be too small and at too strange of an angle to be anything more than an armrest, they could act as a divider that helps to avoid any awkward interactions with someone insane enough to also sit at the bench with you.
I want you to imagine a Snell with double, no, triple the number of weird squiggly benches. The sheer density of these scuffed benches would surely encourage students to tap into this underutilized resource, and encourage innovation. Students would move them around, stack them up, make fun little pillow forts out of them. Really, the sky is the limit. A Snell with more scuffed benches would be a Snell that sparks more joy, fits more people, and provides more with students an excellent opportunity to strain their back while hunching over a laptop in their lap.
Image Credit: Kevin Chen
