January 29, 1981

MAYBE it was because they were all starting out fresh. One couple had recently married and had just bought a duplex. Another had just divorced, and she got the art and a new apartment. And one executive, who had just begun a business, found a perfect, if small, studio right around the corner from her new shop. All of them chose to break with the past and to experiment in their new dwellings with floor plans that did the same: floor plans that called for a new kind of furniture, a solitary unit combining various functions and positioned in the middle of the room. These custom-made structures served not only as a focus for living but as a kind of psychological anchor for their new beginnings. That's the way, at least, that Penny Davidson, the owner of the Manolo Blahnik shoe store on Madison Avenue, described it.

In this grim manufacturing city, the Polish Manchester, as it is called, with its red-brick textile mills and tenements that spawned strikes a century ago, about 4,000 students are sitting in at the university. With the paraphernalia of protest -sleeping bags in the corridors, sausages hanging from coat-rack hooks and a cheap press to crank out a list of demands - they are out to change the way education is run in Poland. The protest, now in its fifth day, appears to be growing. Nine out of the 12 buildings at the 7,000-student university are occupied, so instruction has virtually come to a halt. The nearby Polytechnic and the Medical Academy have joined in. And student delegations have arrived from the Roman Catholic University of Lublin and the state universities in Wro@claw, Warsaw and Gdansk to show solidarity and, perhaps, to spread the message of revolt back home.

President Reagan ended controls on domestic oil and gasoline production and distribution, effective immediately, in a move that is expected to lift gasoline prices. The Administration said, however, that gasoline prices at the end of the year would be no higher than they would have been if the controls had been allowed to expire as scheduled on Sept. 30. (Page A1.) The oil industry hailed the move, but small refiners and gasoline distributors said they feared deregulation could drive them out of business. (D6.) New Jersey's Energy Commissioner said decontrol would ''fan the fires of inflation.'' New York State's Energy Commissioner said it should not be an excuse for ''inordinate'' price rises. (B12.) In New York, decontrol could make moot a Federal lawsuit brought by oil companies against the state's tax on their gross receipts. (B13.)

Other fashion designers may try to find out what their competitors are doing so they can stimulate their own ideas. If Yves Saint Laurent cares at all - and there is no indication that he does - it is so he can do something different. His major contribution to the couture fashion scene for spring and summer is to make classic spring clothes. You know, navy blue suits, toppers, some good looking coats - the kind of thing hardly anyone pays much attention to any more. It is something of a bombshell when a spring suit means, to so many designers here, a rajah jacket and jodhpurs.

In a marked shift of position and tone, Gen. David C. Jones of the Air Force, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, vigorously urged Congress today to give top priority to building a new strategic bomber. General Jones said the need was urgent. ''Deploying a new manned penetrator should be a top priority among the new strategic initiatives that we need to pursue in the days ahead,'' he said, adding that such an aircraft would be able to penetrate extensive Soviet defenses. In a report to Congress last year, however, General Jones, the nation's senior military officer, had said, ''Over the longer term, I believe we must continue with the development of a manned penetrating aircraft to succeed the B-52.''