The smells. The noise. The single shower.
Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
241–250 of 700 posts
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely building codes mandate a comprehensive evacuation design. There are clearly aesthetic complaints many people will have here, but realistically safety shouldn't be a problem. This is simply not a "large" building by skyscraper standards, and those can be built safely. Honestly... I think this is very much a taste thing. Is it so weird that I don't think this looks so bad at all? Yeah, yeah, no windows. But dens…
> These 4500 kids in their sardine rooms will have multiple food options, probably several gyms, rec rooms, libraries, etc... all "down the hall". No better way to get kids prepared for what comes ahead in their adulthood, huh?
To be fair, that sounds like any of the cookie cutter "luxury" apartment complexes I see coming up all over the place, right down to the inability to see anything other than your neighbors out the window.
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#243Earlier 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…
Your roommates chose to have blackout curtains. And they could choose to open them.
A student in a windowless room could choose to have a SAD lamp.
https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-lamps.html
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/light-therapy/ab...
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#244If this thing gets built and then abandoned, it has the potential to be the most haunted building on Earth
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#245In comparison, this is some cool student housing: https://copenhagenarchitecture.dk/tietgen-student-housing/ It's a ring. The personal rooms have views to the outside, and the communal spaces open to the inside.
wow, thats beautiful. Just copy paste that ffs
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#246"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
We really need a way to protect ourselves against what the rich are doing to the rest of us.
It would require a system other than one designed around how the market clears.
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#247One piece of context that people might not realize: the student housing stock around UCSB is extremely limited. I've heard stories about students living in Ventura (40 minutes away by car), some students (who presumably are guaranteed housing) have been placed in hotels[1], and students living out of cars[2]. So this may be the reason that administrators feel pressured to accept this building.
Still taking $200 million dollars from an eccentric billionaire to build his ideal building is a bit of a strange decision to me.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/UCSantaBarbara/comments/pfvasz/hous...
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/UCSantaBarbara/comments/p91gjl/how_...
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#248As a previous comment pointed out this isn't the first of the Munger residence. You can read the student reviews here: https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduat...
Munger also helped fund (though not design, AFAIK) the Munger graduate residences at Stanford (which, AFAIK, weren't hated): https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing/munger-graduate-resi...
But a key thing at Stanford and UM is that these were graduate residences, with 1 to 1 bedroom and bath ratio, and full sized bedrooms. Not 8 undergrad pods per bathroom. [0]
[0] https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2021/020361/absolutely-stunning
https://www.independent.com/2021/07/27/ucsb-offers-new-detai...
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#2498 people and one bathroom. WTF! Lotta people gonna be shitting in bags
My dorm freshman year had the same ratio. Didn’t seem to be a problem.
Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
#250Jesus FUCK that's a horrible idea. My neighbor is a maintenance guy for a sober living complex and he has talked to me about maintaining these kinds of high density environments, and this seems like a nightmare scenario just waiting to happen. Also, just emotionally, this can't possibly work. There's no way to succeed in such a high pressure environment like those college years with so little space and so little priv…
My college dorm room (150 sq ft[1]) wasn't much bigger than these rooms, and I had a roommate. Privacy isn't something dorms have had in a long time, and a tiny solo sleeping room actually affords more privacy, I think? My roommate often stayed up late at night playing videogames with voice chat, which sucked in a double. Also a (tiny) single room gives you more privacy for sex, which is another important part of college.
I don't love this building, but I don't think (1) privacy is an actual problem with it, or (2) that the concerns of a sober living facility are necessarily the same as a college dormitory.
[1]: https://www.hfs.uw.edu/HFSExtranet/media/Floor-Plans/McMahon... (PDF)