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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

#481

Post by ghaff »

thehappypm wrote: post #456
ghaff wrote: post #6

That seems spectacularly awful--although there's probably been an overall trend in US college dorms (not that I've made a real study of it) towards small single rooms with common areas in general.

At my college, people fought tooth-and-nail to live in this environment rather than continue with double occupancy dorm rooms. At my school, groups of people claimed a suite (with "points" assigned weighted towards older students). So seniors and some juniors had their choice and they 100% (literally all of them) preferred suites to dorms. It was a fun place to hang out during the day and at night, and you actually h…

The dorm I lived in undergraduate had a suite system and it would be my preference though not all rooms were singles (and they generally had usable windows).

The dorm was recently renovated. Curious what they did to the interior design.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#482

Post by throwaway09223 »

hn_user82179 wrote: post #462
ajross wrote: post #142

Earlier 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…

It's clear the donor purposefully designed the rooms to be unpleasant to get people up into common rooms. It's just... weird. It doesn't matter if it looks good or bad but uncomfortable design like this is bizarrely aggressive to students, who are already living away from home and at-risk for depression and suicide. Not to mention that housing like this makes breeding grounds for the flu and other contagious illnesse…

As you note, students are at-risk for depression and suicide in today's existing student living quarters.

We don't know whether or not a community focused living design would help or hurt in this regard.

The covid/contagion question is interesting, because we DO know that designing for contagion safety is seemly inherently at odds with designing for social/emotional safety.

I think there's no clearly superior solution here, which tells me that building both types of systems would at least help further our understanding of the issues.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#483

Post by CydeWeys »

InitialLastName wrote: post #242
rglullis wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

"Cookie cutter" apartment complexes are waaaaay nicer than this, including literally about 10X the square footage per inhabitant, and way more windows. Dunno what you're talking about.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#484

Post by LegitShady »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #468
LegitShady wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this only betrays a deep misunderstanding on your part of the challenges in construction and issues with Sub grade stability in coastal zones and how different those things are to having enough fire exits. Your comment is not making any point but your of lack of understanding.

"deep misunderstanding on your part of the challenge" A citizen doesn't care about challenges in construction or software or food contamination, it is our professional responsibility not to be negligent in our work.

the standard for negligence for an engineer isnt that "something bad happened", and talking about a building with foundation issues due to unstable local soil is far different than "didn't meet fire code" from the perspective of anyone who knows anything about the issues at hand.

Just an FYI it's unlikely an architect designed those foundations - there were probably engineers who tested the soil and gave its properties to a designing engineer who designed the foundation and both of those things are going to be tempered by what was common engineering practice at the time, and if the unstable soil situation was known about. My understanding is this situation is common in the area due to building practice at the time.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#485

Post by newbie789 »

I’m surprised that an 11 story building would be considered in that area. There are very, very few tall buildings in Santa Barbara.

Then again, “rich old people doing outlandishly ridiculous bullshit” is pretty much what that town is all about. (I lived there for 20 years)

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#486

Post by 0xB31B1B »

tomtheelder wrote: post #381
indodima wrote: post #113

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-…

You do realize that like, 10% of the student population at UCSB is offically homeless right? Right now they sleep on friends couches, in their cars, or in transient weekly rental situations

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#487

Post by morpheuskafka »

mindcrime wrote: post #385
op00to wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you? In the northeast, sprinklers have been required in institutional buildings for as long as California.

North Carolina for me.

Interestingly, NC's requirement for student housing is actually done internally by the UNC System rather than by any code authority. The last unsprinklered dorms at UNC were torn down a few years ago.

As far as I know, building codes do require sprinklers in new residences just judging based on the 2010s era complexes around campus. I had assumed this was standard everywhere now, but maybe not. The place I live in now is from the 60s iirc and so of course does not have any. Interestingly, the entire buildings fire panel and smoke heads seem to have been retrofitted rather recently, but the old continuous bells are still in use with no strobes. Surprisingly, many residents do not seem to understand the significance of not having sprinkler protection and do not evacuate with any urgency, if at all.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#488

Post by tov247 »

loeg wrote: post #233
musingsole wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are dorms at my university (University of Maryland) that are over 100 years old, but have been renovated enough that it's fine. I would hope that Universities have a long enough time horizon that things would be built to last an extremely long time with regular renovations.

With catastrophic climate change on the horizon, the theory is that pandemics will become significantly more frequent.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#489

Post by dang »

gt565k wrote: 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…

Would you please follow the site guidelines, including these ones?

"Please don't fulminate."

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."

"Eschew flamebait."

Comments that consist only of denunciatory rhetoric and add no information are the opposite of what we're hoping for here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. The idea is: if you have a substantive point, make it thoughtfully; if not, please don't comment until you do.

Just in case anyone is worried, I have no opinion about the building or any of the people involved. Moderation like this is purely concerned with comment quality on HN.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#490

Post by coding123 »

mindcrime wrote: post #282
mindcrime wrote: post #91

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…

FWIW, I am intrigued enough by this that I decided to reach out to SBFD and inquire as to their position (if any) on this proposal. I just sent the following email to several of their fire prevention / inspections / public info people. If/when I hear back, I'll update you all. Or heck, maybe one of them will sign up for an HN account and post something. That would be interesting. ---- > SBFire: > Hi, I have a questio…

I'm not the guy you contacted, but I've had my head down in Title 24 crap for months, but here's the egress requirements in CA:

https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/CFC2019P4/chapter-10-means...

Read the section on "[BE] 1004.2Cumulative occupant loads."

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