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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

#551

Post by tinalumfoil »

mikestew wrote: post #77

I'm absolutely serious when I say that the second illustration of the "suites" bares a striking resemblance to the layout of the county jail I briefly stayed in in Anderson, Indiana. There a few differences I'll note: 1. The rooms in the jail were larger, but I did have a roommate, so I'm not sure which has the larger amount of personal space. 2. In jail, at least there were windows. 3. In jail, I only had to share t…

I think people you're underestimating how poor the conditions in most jails are. Maybe at Riker's island you share a toilet with less people, but it's dirtier, the healthcare will take 20 years off your life and there's good chance you'll get murdered before you get out.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#552

Post by burkaman »

nickff wrote: post #518
tov247 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> "With catastrophic climate change on the horizon, the theory is that pandemics will become significantly more frequent. " What theory is this? I've heard of globalization and rapid transportation speeding up pandemics, but never climate change.

It's easy to find better explanations with a quick search, but the general idea is that as habitats change, animals will move toward the poles and come into contact with other species that they historically haven't, creating lots of new opportunities for diseases to jump between species and mutate and do all the things they love to do.

There are also studies implying that animals like rodents and bats that spread the most diseases to humans are also adapting the best to climate change and human environments, which implies increased risk of new diseases: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.273...

There's also the idea of frozen pathogens thawing and infecting animals, which has happened recently: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/03/4884009...

In general it's not that climate change makes pandemics worse, but it makes the chance of a new disease infecting a human more likely.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#553

Post by thehappypm »

dEnigma wrote: post #496
thehappypm wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine an introvert would do far worse in a shared triple room with no common areas at all, in this dorm, they have a private room.

Why is the alternative automatically a triple room with no common area, and not simply a single room with at least a window (plus a common area)?

Because that's what this proposal is replacing.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#554

Post by treis »

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…

Reading the comments feels like everyone went to college in bizarro world. The dorms I lived in always had shared bedrooms. In one 4 people across two bunk beds. Having a room to call my own in a dorm would have been an extraordinary improvement. Wouldn't have cared in the slightest bit about a window.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#555

Post by thehappypm »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #497
thehappypm wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I feel like most folks here are wildly out of touch with what it's like to be a college student, including the architect. I, and just about everyone else from my college, would trade just about every creature comfort for a private room to sleep. In fact my college had suites like these and they were fought over tooth-and-nail in the room draw process. I think one of the most bizarre things we accept in life is…

> I think one of the most bizarre things we accept in life is college kids being forced into doubles and triples. I went to uni. in the 70s in the UK. I never had to share. A few students at the same uni. did but it was almost always possible to move to a single room later in the year. Do so many US students really have to share rooms, and if so why?

Yes, it's extremely common to share, especially in the first couple years. Many many colleges require students to live on campus freshman year and the provided housing is forced doubles (or even triples) and sometimes even temporary housing. As for why -- it's cheaper to stuff 2 or 3 students into 1 dorm room, obviously.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#558

Post by tsimionescu »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #229
kpmcc wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that many of the positive reviews are from pre-covid times and the two that coincide with the pandemic note how ill suited it is to such conditions.

I agree, but I'd also challenge that we shouldn't be designing our permanent, 100+ year structures around pandemics.

I view it as exactly the other way around: if you're building barracks in any normal year, sure, don't care about pandemics.

But for any long-lived building, thinking how it will work in various disaster scenarios is crucial, as your design will affect the life or death of thousands living there, even if it's "just" for one-two years. And given everything we know about the recurrence of pandemics, it's virtually certain that at least another one will come around within 100 years.

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#559

Post by daun »

shawndrost wrote: post #383
wpietri wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're really misrepresenting the information from the link. Munger is the top-rated residence in the area. https://www.veryapt.com/Apartments-L7646-ann-arbor-central-c...

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

Re: Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm

#560

Post by some_random »

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…

It's hard to go to a university these days and not feel like you're getting scammed every single step of the way.
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