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Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

independent.com

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Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#591

Post by chasing »

supperburg wrote: post #576
chasing wrote: post #341

Alternate plan: Raise taxes on the wealthy. Use that money to fund the University of California. Spend money on dorms that actually adhere to modern standards and are designed by actual experts and innovators in architecture. Frustrating that universities have to rely on the whims and quirks of wealthy individuals like this.

This place cost 1.5B. If you want to give everyone more space and windows then it’s only going to cost more, and that’s before it’s goes over schedule. This is one dorm building for one college. If you play it through, which you have never done, then you would see that even if we took every penny from the rich we wouldn’t be able to do what you said. And by the way, you are in the top 1% wealth bracket globally, so w…

I am, relatively speaking, wealthy. And, yes, I do think my taxes should be higher so other Americans can have access to basic resources like food, shelter, healthcare, and education. I’m sorry this idea angers you. Nothing else in your comment makes enough sense to respond to.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#592

Post by boredguy8 »

hemloc_io wrote: post #499

Hijacking the thread a bit, but I'm not sure people understand how predatory student housing is in aggregate. At many colleges you don't even have a choice to live in the dorms or not as an undergrad, living on campus for 1-2 years is tied to enrollment. On top of this lots of financing for college housing is wonky, because some colleges do not pay property tax. (So you can have the college hold the land and some thi…

That's a big fast 'citation needed' for the initial claim.

I'm not sure where this idea comes from, but it's wholly false, at least at the myriad of colleges I've worked with, and generally true in urban settings [0]. Housing is often a loss for the university (hence the explosion of PPP to try and recoup those losses). Instead, especially at places like UCSB, it's landlords in the area that are a large financial burden for students. At my last university, rental occupancy within a 5 mile radius was at 98%, which exerts a huge upwards pressure on rent. Students were BEGGING for more housing, because campus housing was on-par or lower than the area, and comes with many other benefits related to travel and campus resources. Furthermore, college housing often provides a 9 or 10 month lease option, which can save a lot of money over an annual lease.

Additionally, there is regular evidence [1][2] that living on campus helps with retention rates, which is critical to avoiding the 'spending money, never getting the credential' problem plaguing higher ed. In this light, even if campus housing were somewhat more expensive, the benefit in completion could easily outweigh those costs.

Munger looks terrible, but there's a HIGH demand and LOW supply for housing at UCSB, and at urban colleges in general. It's not a cash cow for many, if any, campuses. Certainly not public ones.

0: "'When you look at the metros that have exceptionally high cost of living expenses like New York, Boston and San Francisco, there has been research done that those areas can be significantly cheaper for a student to live on campus,' says Amy Glynn, vice president of financial aid and community initiatives at CampusLogic, a firm that advises higher education institutions."

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-co...

1: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236730093_The_Causa...

2: https://www.ucf.edu/news/students-living-on-campus-experienc...

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#593

Post by elihu »

I agree with the architect's criticism and I don't think I'd want to live in a room without windows without some compensating factor.

It is interesting, though, from the point of view of exploring ways for people to live. One of the main objections to human habitation on Mars is that people will have to live in radiation-hardened bunkers, probably underground. A lot of people consider lack of windows to be an absolute show-stopper. I don't think that's the case, but I do think that in order to go without windows you at least need to pay a lot of careful attention to creating natural light conditions and simulating wide-open spaces. Maybe you'd have to have more floor-space per person than you would otherwise, and maybe you'd need to have a few very large rooms with walls and ceiling painted a flat color that's hard to focus directly on and looks like sky.

It doesn't seem like the designer of this dorm is doing much of that; it seems more like they're just running the "let's take away windows and see what happens" experiment. People are adaptable and some of them won't mind, but still I don't think it's going to be very successful on average.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#594

Post by elpatoisthebest »

craftinator wrote: post #580
daun wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either several of those positive reviews are fake, or those MBA students are functionally illiterate.

I've met several MBA's, and they are more 'partially literate' in that they can write huge quantities of stuff, but each paragraph has nothing to do with the last paragraph. Similarly, they can read whole books very quickly, but they do so by reading just the first sentence on every page. This is what gives them the superpower of reading large technical emails, and responding to them in seconds about a completely unr…

The most highly educated person in my extended family has the worst spelling and grammar of anyone I've ever seen. Getting a hand written note from them is always a guessing game.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#595

Post by elihu »

jefftk wrote: post #375

Lots of uninformed reactions hiding the important stuff in this thread: * Munger did something similar at the University of Michigan, which residents review positively: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29038730 * The building plans include sprinklers and have multiple escape stairs their own exits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29039893 * There are lots of windows and natural light in the per-suite common…

The per-suite common areas don't have windows. It looks like there's a large-ish common area with windows per "house" shared by 64 people.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#597

Post by colinmhayes »

boredguy8 wrote: post #592
hemloc_io wrote: post #499

Hijacking the thread a bit, but I'm not sure people understand how predatory student housing is in aggregate. At many colleges you don't even have a choice to live in the dorms or not as an undergrad, living on campus for 1-2 years is tied to enrollment. On top of this lots of financing for college housing is wonky, because some colleges do not pay property tax. (So you can have the college hold the land and some thi…

That's a big fast 'citation needed' for the initial claim. I'm not sure where this idea comes from, but it's wholly false, at least at the myriad of colleges I've worked with, and generally true in urban settings [0]. Housing is often a loss for the university (hence the explosion of PPP to try and recoup those losses). Instead, especially at places like UCSB, it's landlords in the area that are a large financial bur…

Definitely is the case at Northwestern. Forced to live in dorms the first 2 years which cost the same as a full year of a 1 bedroom near by and is much, much lower quality. And the force you on to the dining plan which comes out to being as expensive eating every meal at a legitimate restaurant.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#598

Post by SkeuomorphicBee »

sojournerc wrote: post #14
krembanan wrote: post #5

Are there no laws against this in the U.S? In Norway there are building codes that prohibits bedrooms without a real window.

It varies from place to place but, typically for a room in a single-family home to be considered a bedroom, it needs 2 egress points, the second usually being a window. I imagine similar codes are in place for multi-unit buildings. This proposed building has 2 entrances for 4000 people. I cannot imagine it will pass fire code, or could effectively be evacuated in an emergency. Astounding that someone thought it was a…

They probably compensated the lack of 2 egress points, by having other extra fire suppression measures (e.g. sprinklers, firewalls).

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#599

Post by heartbreak »

slownews45 wrote: post #547
Aerroon wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The LACK of operable windows in a bedroom is generally a REQUIREMENT on a skyscraper / residential condo tower for safety reasons. They worry about kids falling out etc. Can you explain more on this point? Because tall buildings not having windows that open because children might fall out of them sounds completely ridiculous to me. Some of the Soviet commie blocks were 16 storeys tall and obviously the windows can…

Sure. One issue is that for tall buildings a fair bit of thought goes into things like aerodynamics of overall building, ventilation / HVAC control, and internal pressures. A tall building has an issue with its core / utilities usually, the taller the go generally the worse the ratio of non-livable space to livable. So things that mess with for example HVAC efficiency may be seen as a negative. If everyone opens a wi…

I live in a tall (>30 floors) residential building in Texas, and all of our windows open. I wouldn’t want to use one as an exit in a fire, though. Even going down the stairs during an alarm took ~10 minutes.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#600

Post by prewett »

paganel wrote: post #533
raldi wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the two entrances, there are ten emergency exit stairwells on every floor: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC1jlGjVEAIvAG8?format=jpg

This Munger guy shouldn't design buildings, he should have sticked with making money out of bull-riding the stock-market.

Given that he is donating $200 million towards its construction, presumably he spent a substantial amount of money on getting qualified people to design it. It's not like he's short on money.
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