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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

#231
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…

Wow, some of the quotes here:

"Good luck surviving seasonal depression or maintaining your slowly failing eyesight, especially during a pandemic and you should not be spending long periods in common spaces, when 95% of the rooms in Munger have NO WINDOW"

"It can be a huge problem for people to live in because normally people would feel very uncomfortable living in a room without windows, and you don't even have a safe place to recover yourself when you feel down."

"Having building controlled heat/cooling is definitely not ideal and living with 5-6 other grad students may not be your ideal option (weigh this heavily). I happened to luck out with 6 complete strangers"

"The apartments have 6-7 bedrooms (and each has it's own bathroom) which is great when you want to socialize but also a challenge if you need quiet."

And of course, there's real selection bias here. These are grad students, and grad students in Ann Arbor have a fair bit of choice. Any problems at UCSB will be magnified, as it's an undergrad dorm where the students have less life experience and less choice.

What I'd really love to see is a study on the mental health of people moving into this. People generally have a very poor understanding of how lighting affects mental health. I know I did until I took it seriously.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#232

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...

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…

I could assume that they would have those amenities also, but we have no way of knowing, and isn't that a concern in and of itself? In the article linked below, the artist renderings look more like an open concept market place like a mall or Boston Public Market. Fine spaces to eat, shop, and socialize, but not so good for study. https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2021/020361/absolutely-stunning

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#233
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…

No kidding! We just went through 2 years where this building would've been the absolute worst to grapple with. Imagine those 4,500 being told to sit out the pandemic in their rooms. How can they miss the problem when the worst case scenario for some idiotic design like this happened last year!

Design life for buildings is under 50 years and 100-year pandemics are somewhat less frequent? I mean I agree it would be a miserable place to shelter-in-place for COVID, but with COVID in the rear-view mirror for the vaccinated, I'm not sure it's a major concern.

I think fire safety, lack of entrances, lack of windows and fresh air are bigger concerns.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#234
OK hold up, density is good. Let's not do some laundered CA-loves-housing-crunch here.

But yes, the thing needs more entrances, windows, and also the floorspace needs vastly more street interaction.

There is this sick thing where if you compare old and new buildings, and the streetscape is vastly less compact than it used to be. My favorite comparison is in Long Island City:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7487041,-73.937889,3a,75y,20...

and

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.742877,-73.9540354,3a,75y,76...

Now, sure maybe schools aught not to have commerical tennants for some reason (though frankly I think that's kinda romantic/naive) but the density of ammenities should be no less. There should be cafeterias, corner stores, etc., all spilling out onto the street.

It's not a fortress or mall.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which history shows us tend to be locked or barricaded when they're not supposed to be, or obstructed in some other way, or otherwise unavailable. Sure, there are other egresses available in principle. Hell, you can sledge-hammer your way through a wall in a pinch. But in any practical sense? Having two primary ingress/egress points is a horrible idea.

My office building is inspected a couple times a year. They flip out if you get anywhere near blocking the operation of an interior fire door (like auto closing metal doors), much less egress doors. Hell, until recently they wouldn't even let us have fans because of the possibility it could impact the design of the air handling for the building effectively removing smoke. So I think maybe we've progressed beyond the…

So I think maybe we've progressed beyond the bad old days of the early 20th century

Yes, we have to some degree. That doesn't mean we should be complacent now.

And major fires that kill lots of people because bad decisions were made are not a phenomenon that stopped happening after Triangle Shirtwaist. Things got better, but we still have room to continue to improve.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#237
post #28

Glad he had the balls to step down and call them out. The other committee members and people in charge of the project should be embarrassed as they failed to represent the best needs of the university and its students. Windowless dorms, crazy 97 year old billionaire amateur architect and a bunch of corrupt university staff and committee members who would do anything to save a few bucks. What could go wrong? Humanity…

Not to dispute any of your arguments, I'm really surprised at your referring to the consideration of whether to accept a gift of $200M as "save a few bucks".

It's $200 million in your pocket at a cost of $1.3 billion out.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#238

Sad that economical living spaces are considered so radical on HN. I lived in a small dorm with a crappy roommate (actual roommate, not flatmate). So I didn't spend any unnecessary time in my room outside of sleeping. I hung out at the library, cafeteria, etc and went to random talks/activities on campus (there are a lot of them on a big campus). No windows? Sunlight alarms exist. They're great. Modern AC is also gre…

The point is not that extremely small living spaces, which you flatteringly describe as “economical”, are intrinsically bad. The issue here is the imbalance of power.

I can say with near certainty that very few of the students who would be living in this space would opt for such a layout (extremely small rooms, no windows). Obviously, the students have absolutely no say in the matter, and neither does the university staff who is supposed to take care of the students' well-being.

Rather, the power dynamic here is completely unilateral. Every detail of the space 4500 people will be living in will be prescribed and commanded by one guy, based on no other credentials than the fact that he's paying for it.

This is the issue: the imbalance of power, and the unilateral ability of an investor and “hobby architect” to make generations of students live in conditions they would not themselves choose. The fact that people on HN seem to be against this building only serves as evidence that most people would not choose to live in it.

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