I'm sitting in a stocky rattan chair at a built-in desk that spans two-thirds the length of the wall. Above it is a burlap message board and a long open storage cabinet. To my left, the remaining third of the wall is a lovely corner window that looks out on a rolling grassy drumlin. When the window is cranked open, a fresh spring breeze flutters the sensible woollen curtains.

A single captain's bed to my right crowds the desk and spans the remaining part of the east wall. The west wall has a large, ingenious wardrobe/dresser/medicine cabinet unit, complete with an interior florescent strip that also provides indirect room lighting through a cut-out. Well-worn leather loop-pulls on every drawer and cabinet still work like a charm.

In faded blue pen on the desk's surface is the inscription "Lisa Rocks." I can't attest to that, but I can tell you that this Trent University dorm room does indeed rock. It's not big at 10 by 10 feet, but it's comfortable and, more importantly, the work of one of Canada's pre-eminent modern architects, Ronald J. Thom, who died, his practice in shambles, in 1986.

As his Massey College at the University of Toronto was being completed in 1963, the self-taught architect was chosen to design the new Trent University on the banks of Peterborough's Otonabee River. For Trent's Champlain College -- his most fully integrated design -- Mr. Thom created an intimate, pedestrian-friendly series of buildings and public spaces that remain a watershed in the history of Canadian modern architecture. I'm here attending the first-ever "Conserving the Modern in Canada" conference, and the setting couldn't be more appropriate for what we're all here to understand, appreciate and protect.

Later, standing on the bridge designed by Paul Merrick and Morden Yolles, admiring the craggy buildings -- the unique "rubble aggregate" walls look like cookies crumbled into smooth ice cream -- I begin to really see the domestic qualities of the campus, as The Globe and Mail's Lisa Rochon has observed.

Mr. Thom designed dozens of houses in his native British Columbia, and dozens more in Ontario after his move to Toronto in 1963. But since I've never had the pleasure of owning or visiting one, this little dorm room, with its incredibly economical use of space, might be as close as I ever get.

Surprisingly, although Mr. Thom's influences have been listed as Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler and Harwell Hamilton Harris, most of what I glean here is of the master -- Wright.

The shape and window configuration of the stairwell light towers recall Wright's famous Pennsylvania house "Fallingwater," as does the campus's marriage to a water feature. While Fallingwater is placed directly over a waterfall, Trent uses its river as its front yard; there even is a short stairway on its bank.

Although less formal in their design, the walls of Champlain College call to mind Wright's 1920s "textile block" houses in California.

The Senior Common Room -- with its roof overhang and corner glazing, boxy furniture (also designed by Mr. Thom), dominating fireplace and low wooden trellis -- is like many of Wright's cozy, intimate interiors. Indeed, there's something so sensual about all these natural materials that it's not uncommon to see a delegate absentmindedly reach out and stroke the aggregate wall as we move seamlessly from lecture hall to great hall for meals, or back to the dormitory buildings. There's so much connectivity between buildings, they read as one big space, not as separate objects.

In a letter to Trent's master, William Morton, on June 7, 1967, Mr. Thom explained his logic: "It also seemed reasonable to place the buildings in a dense urban agglomeration, even to the extent of many of the buildings being contiguous extensions of one another. There are too many examples of campuses scattered over the landscape in a way that dilutes the academic concentration of the campus, and at the same time destroys the countryside."

In my three short days living here, I've found Mr. Thom's vision still works, at least at Champlain College. The unity of its design must make students feel as if they reside in all of it, not just a "study bedroom."

With dorm rooms grouped around the stairwells eliminating the need for corridors, the residence buildings feel more like high-end apartments rather than institutional buildings. Although I take my meals in a different room, it's a gorgeous, cathedral-like space. The wide, welcoming banks of the Otonabee are a 10-second walk away, and I hear the fishing is good.

The only drawback to living here? I have to share a washroom with about 10 other guys.

Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Sunday mornings. Inquiries can be sent to dave.leblanc@globeandmail.ca.