ABSTRACT
For the most part of ones life to date one has been a student of one form of formal education or other. From the wealth of experiences from these forms of education, one could not be conversant with one might term the student problem, this of course places one in a good position to advocate for the need to improve the general welfare of students. Finally, arrived at a decision to design a community living space for Abuja University Students to be known as STUDENTS' UNTON COMPLEX. Realisation of the fact that other welfare buildings like Churches/Chapels, Mosques and Classrooms cater for only a cross-section of the students was considered as an added advantage to this thesis. This thesis report in its first part deals with the introduction. This is followed by literature review of College/Students' Union Buildings. Lastly in this part, are the case studies of existing Students' Union/Centres, where a critique is done to the Union buildings. The second part deals generally with the necessary information on the University, site and thesis problem. Information and basic data, in this stage attention was given to the site and its environmental factors, which are among ,the factors determining the design, as they form the basis for the guidelines Leading to design process. In the next staple, attention was focussed on the various processes of design, like programming, schedule of accommodation, conceptual development and the final stage and its report. Programming process sheds more light on the multiple functions of the students' Union complex, with a view to coming up with a comprehensive brief for the proposed Union complex Conceptual development, deals with the analysis and synthesis of various concepts or factors in the process of conceptualizing the design. The final design evolved as a result of translating various analysis and functions. The design report is an evaluation of the design in terms of its operation and the problems encountered and the likely ones in its executions.