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Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

independent.com

431–440 of 700 posts

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think probably you shouldn't be talking down to the firefighter about fire safety this way Most of what you said was already addressed

What makes a firefighter an expert on building egress requirements? The building must meet NFPA code (or whichever fire code the AHJ has selected) or it can’t be built, period. Whoever their insurance company is will not insure the building if it doesn’t meet life safety requirements. Dismissing someone who isn’t a fire code expert who is making claims about fire safety is just fine to me. If we were discussing how t…

The building must meet NFPA code or it can’t be built, period.

To be pedantic, that may be the case for this specific building, as CA may be a state that simply adopted the relevant NFPA model code wholesale and with no changes; but it's not a true statement in the most general sense, as not all localities adopt the various NFPA codes verbatim (or at all).

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#432

"The idea was conceived by 97-year-old billionaire-investor turned amateur-architect Charles Munger, who donated $200 million toward the project with the condition that his blueprints be followed exactly." Absolutely amazing

To be fair, his previous works at UM and Stanford (confusingly, both called "Munger Graduate Residence") have generally very good reviews.

Michigan: https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduat...

Stanford: https://g.co/kgs/TbYAFH

Honestly, it sounds like he just "optimized" the heck out of a residence, and part of the tradeoffs is that on average people would rather have a small private room with a fake window and lower rent and than a shared room with a real window and higher rent. His Michigan building houses twice as many students in the same footprint as competing plans, and the competing plans used shared rooms. Admittedly, these aren't really ideal for COVID though.

As an aside, one of his other interesting architectural quirks is that any shared women's bathrooms are generally much larger than the men's, to deal with differences in how they're used.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#433
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False dilemma. They could make the first floor have food courts and gyms, while having windows or simply not having a 97 year old billionaire donor dictate taste with zero input just because money. You are assuming a lot about whether the safety designs exist, or are adequate .

> You are assuming a lot about whether the safety designs exist, or are adequate. Uh, yes. Because there are laws governing how we can construct buildings in a safe way, and on the whole (c.f. the number of deaths in building fires over time) they work well. So I trust them. As far as the putative logic flaw, I don't see it. Everything is a tradeoff, even "because money". Saving money on the dorm means lower tuition,…

Zoning and building codes set forth by a municipality do not necessarily have to be followed by the state government (presuming the UC system counts as part of the state government).

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#434

From my point-of-view as a former firefighter, I would say this: A building meant to house 4500 students, with only two entrances? There's a word for that: deathtrap. Building this is setting UCSB up to be the site of the next Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire[1], Station Nightclub fire[2], or Hamlet Chicken Processing Plant fire[3]. At a first glance, based only on the information provided in the article, I'd say tha…

The problem with the Station wasn't the lack of egress, it was the lack of identified egress, a choke point at the main entrance which triggered a crowd collapse, pyrotecnics and combustible foam.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not need to be an architect to see that living in windowless boxes (not rooms) will damage young adults psychologically. Just put yourself into this room and try to study for 6 hours a day. It looks worse than a prison cell. This old fart probably has his own ideas about how poor students need to work and live in order to "earn" an education. Not to mention anything regarding virus spreading...

I actually lived in a room remarkably similar to this one year in college. It was marginally bigger than what is pictured, but the space was used far less efficiently (lots of annoying free-standing furniture) so functionally it was probably smaller. Aside from the lack of a window making it awfully hard to wake up in the morning, it was no big deal. It was actually my favorite dorm room I had in college. The single-…

Yeah, I feel like most folks here are wildly out of touch with what it's like to be a college student, including the architect. I, and just about everyone else from my college, would trade just about every creature comfort for a private room to sleep. In fact my college had suites like these and they were fought over tooth-and-nail in the room draw process.

I think one of the most bizarre things we accept in life is college kids being forced into doubles and triples. College "kids" are adults, not little kids in camp.

Plus, even with my window in my single suite room, my sleep cycle was so messed up half the time due to the occasional all-nighter that having no window might have actually been easier for me to deal with.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#436
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamblers fallacy. Not sure what you're contributing besides.

Please elaborate on how that's responsive to my comment. Again, not really sure a possible 2 year pandemic is especially significant in the 50 year design life of a building. Even if it sits empty for 4% of its life with 100% probability (generous), you still get 96% (48 years) of use out of it.

First, you take an arbitrary probability number that depends on man-made models that are likely much more wrong than right. We've had a lot of hundred- or thousand-year events in the last two decades.

The models depend on predicting an uncertain future, and for this kind of stuff using past data has little meaning. It's not lottery numbers where probability really gives you some hard insights. We also have a lot more people, climate change and with it likely more movement from affected areas and a lot of other stuff going on that makes it hard to use data older than this century to gain insights into what will be.

Next, you interpret said probability as nicely equally distributed over time. I don't know what to say to such an interpretation.

Also, a pandemic is a kind of event that even if it indeed only appears rarely (which we hope but don't know) each time has a huge impact.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is to get the students out of their bedrooms. There's plenty of common space, and lots of really nice places to go study and socialize out of your bedroom. This is intended to promote real-life socialization, which is the only real reason to go to in-person college these days. Plus, everyone gets a single! My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is diff…

Sure, we get the goal. It could even be an interesting experiment. Maybe some people would like it. Maybe lots of people. Or maybe it causes lasting psychological harm. But this is going to get built and used for decades regardless of the results of the experiment. > My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is different. You and your college roommates had a choic…

If you want to talk about "choice", this is not the hill that matters. So many colleges force their students to live on campus, and then squeeze them into forced doubles or even triples in conditions far worse than what's being built here.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is great except 50% of people are introverts and need space to recharge. How many people live like this in real life? That speaks to the choice of hanging out followed by "leave me alone". It sounds like an experiment but it could probably have been done slightly further "away from home" if it was about collaboration. Just have places to encourage people to hang out if they want to and not if they don't. Forcin…

I detest architectural coercion. Who is this old rich fuck to force "socialization" (a dystopian word if there ever was one)? That's my business. Buildings and urban environments should be built to allow various degrees of social interaction based on one's own personal needs and determinations as you see fit, not some megalomaniacal lunatic's tyrannical and dehumanizing designs. This is the tyrannical streak running…

Sir, this is a Wendy's

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#439
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is to get the students out of their bedrooms. There's plenty of common space, and lots of really nice places to go study and socialize out of your bedroom. This is intended to promote real-life socialization, which is the only real reason to go to in-person college these days. Plus, everyone gets a single! My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is diff…

Introvert's nightmare. Also, who can study in a common area with all the noise?

I would imagine an introvert would do far worse in a shared triple room with no common areas at all, in this dorm, they have a private room.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#440
post #3

Interesting collision of the idea with the covid era. During an outbreak you’d want students to have a private airspace to go to and the possibility of ventilation. Update: from another comment, Munger designed a similar building in Michigan. It has great reviews! But, one of the top ones was “great until pandemic”. Adding this to clarify that, contra other comments, I don’t necessarily think Munger was mistaken. But…

There were cholera epidemics in the 19th century, until we realized we shouldn't drink contaminated water. In cities such as London, this required major infrastructure investments.

We're just realizing we shouldn't breathe contaminated air, and we're just realizing that we need to make infrastructure investments.

CO2 is a good proxy for infectious disease transmission risk. We breathe out CO2 as we spread pathogens. Outside air is just above 400ppm (higher with auto exhaust) and architects aimed for 600ppm before the pandemic. As one approaches CO2 levels closer to outside air, infectious disease transmission plummets.

To balance ventilation with energy costs (and avoid accelerating global warming) one needs heat exchangers that can't easily be retrofitted into an existing building. Munger Hall could dodge all the bad publicity about fake windows if it sports a "next pandemic ready" ventilation system out of the blocks.

In my experience sitting on building committees, architects are better at original visuals than original engineering. When a Spanish village restores ancient stone huts for tourists, they run DC wiring for LED lights. When I ask if our new building will have DC wiring for LED lights, rather than a cheap, inefficient transformer in every bulb, architects just stare back at me, deer in the headlights. So I'm not hopeful that a radical reworking of our infrastructure will originate with architects.

Our building wasn't going to have windows that opened, till I suggested the building would be usable parts of the year even if the central air failed. I was assured it would never fail. The central air in the previous building failed the next week; I was never implicated. Then our administration overruled the architects and put in office windows. People teased me that I cost us a "this building pees spring water" green certification. Then the pandemic, and I was a hero.

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