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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

#521

Post by spookthesunset »

graeme wrote: post #421
loeg wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but with COVID in the rear-view mirror for the vaccinated, I'm not sure it's a major concern. Your info needs updating. The vaccines wane, and breakthroughs aren’t harmless. Swedish study found efficacy decline basically to nothing at 7 months and severe disease efficacy did too: https://mobile.twitter.com/x2IndSpeculator/status/1454126453... Separate study found no reduction in risk of long covid in the event of a…

Covid is not going away. Get your vaccine and move on with your life. In another year nobody will even remember the damn thing (at least for most places… some don’t seem to want to let this go).

Designing buildings around 1.5 years of isolation because of covid is silly. We will never react to a future pandemic this way again. History will consider this whole mess as one of the most disastrous public health policies ever created and people trying it again will be laughed out of the room.

That being said… designing rooms with no windows is just awful. Bathrooms and stuff, sure. But primary living spaces like bedrooms or living rooms? That is a ticket for depression!

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#522

Post by slownews45 »

NewJazz wrote: post #448
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…

A building meant to house 4500 students, with only two entrances? There's a word for that: deathtrap. For more than just reasons if fire in my opinion. I'm surprised nobody has said the word gun yet. Are they going to be scanning people and checking their backpacks art he door? That sure would make it feel more like a prison.

You are not a student at this school.

Where I went to school we got lots of strong opinions from outsiders. But some of the "worst" dorms were the most popular for reasons that are not always obvious to outsiders.

And yes, some students like to live close to others. UCSB may be doing double and triple bunking in rooms (my school did 4 to a room for a while, when the "crappy" new space opened it was first choice in the housing lottery).

Folks talking about sharing a bathroom meaning that people will be pooping out of windows are idiots who either went to some elite school where you are waited on by butlers. It would not be uncommon for a hall with 15 rooms to have two bathrooms.

Other things that offended folks that students gave no craps about. We had some coed bathrooms, was never an issue. I'm sure now they are called gender neutral.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#523

Post by p_j_w »

Grakel wrote: post #459
p_j_w wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish architects showed the same level of concern for office workers! Kidding aside... given the size of the bedrooms, I get the impression that the students aren't meant to spend much time there aside from whatever amount of sleep college students are getting these days. The rest of their time would probably be spent in common areas that actually do have sunlight. Recalling my personal experience in college, where…

Basically forcing people to live in common areas is horrible. Many people find public spaces distracting at best and uncomfortable or worse. Thank God I had my dorm room to escape to where my roommate and I only had to ignore each other to get some peace.

I always retreated to the library when I needed peace and quiet. Also, these dorms have a mini common area shared between 8 dorms.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#524

Post by paganel »

> 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms.

I've lived until relatively recently (~5 years) in a communist-built, collective-housing unit which had hundreds of studios, if not more (I was unit number 700-something), and even there an access to windows (for the actual room and for the kitchen) plus a small balcony were taken as a given, any other option would have looked like prison.

Also, I'm pretty sure the studio-apartment potentially not having an window would have broken even the communist-era building regulations, how does the building from the article pass those regulation, are they really that lax when it comes to access to windows?

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#526

Post by spookthesunset »

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…

> Not to mention that housing like this makes breeding grounds for the flu and other contagious illnesses. It's poorly timed given we're still battling Covid-19 worldwide.

Designing 100 year buildings around our current hysterical reaction to covid is just silly. Covid is over, time to move on.

History will harshly judge our reaction to covid and we will hopefully never repeat this awful public health policy again. The idea that we should be designing building with covid in mind is just a symptom of how much parts of society has lost the plot.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#527

Post by ghaff »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #465
ciabattabread wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No windows? Sunlight alarms exist. They're great. Modern AC is also great. From an economic standpoint, why spend money on an inferior substitute when you can get the real thing for free?!

The real thing isn't free. It costs an externally facing wall.

And I'm guessing pretty much any new dorm built today will have central air in any case.

My initial reaction was pretty negative and not sure how I'd feel about the overall size and the lack of windows in rooms. On the other hand, in a lot of designs even if you have a window it's often facing a wall.

However, I actually favor optimizing for the common space. I liked that kind of design. And the rooms being discussed here don't seem much if any smaller than the smaller singles I remember.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#528

Post by slownews45 »

motioncuty wrote: post #513
dragonwriter wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my point-of-view as a former firefighter, I would say this: > A building meant to house 4500 students, with only two entrances? I would think that, you being a former firefighter, you’d know that exits (for regular use and, even more so, emergency exits ) are not the same thing as (are generally a superset of) entrances. The plans for the building [0] show 10 escape stairs with dedicated exits (including the f…

I would say that, as someone holding a B.S. in Fire Protection Engineering, I am extremely uncomfortable with no windows in a bedroom.

I'm curious - reading this makes me depressed at how stupid HN and reactionary HN seems to have become.

Do people not realize that in California we build residential buildings that are MANY MANY stories tall.

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.

The safety plans involve other measures - including much better building codes around fire control (ie, sprinklers). Fire hardened emergency exists (ie, these students may be moving out of historic all wood tinderboxes if my old CA school is any indication).

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#529

Post by _ea1k »

mindcrime wrote: post #428
_ea1k wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I had no idea that there were still states that wouldn't require them.

There's a lot of nuance to that, because "requirements" vary based on building type and other details. And TBH, I'm not 100% up on the latest details even here in NC, as I've been away from the fire service for some time now. What I can say with some confidence is that sprinklers are widely required in commercial buildings, and I think it's safe to say that's fairly widespread across the US. But even there, I wouldn'…

Oh, I was meaning for multi-family dwellings. I haven't seen them in single family homes either, though it is interesting that requirements are starting to increase there too.

TBH, I just wish there were stricter rules for smoke detectors and equipment in garages. I feel like this is a big gap with the current rules, at least in my state.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#530

Post by [deleted] »

wpietri wrote: post #231
graeme wrote: 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 saf…

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