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Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

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Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#91

Post by hinkley »

chaosite wrote: post #31
woodruffw wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The building is apparently in the same mould as a highly-rated[1] one already in use at the University of Michigan. The people (graduate students?) who live there seem to like it more than any other campus housing option. [1]: https://www.veryapt.com/Apartments-L7646-ann-arbor-central-c...

It is not in the same mould at all. Reposting my previous comment: OK, I found an article with a floorplan[1]. This thing is not at all comparable to the Michigan dorms. Recall, in the Michigan dorms you have an apartment housing 7 people with a spacious, well-lit living room (6 windows, but the count isn't important.) Sure, you don't have a window in your bedroom, and that sucks, but to see the sun you just go throu…

I wonder if the rendering is a lie, or there are a small number of bedrooms that have private windows in them?

I think the main mistakes here are that he made the building bilaterally symmetrical and it should instead be along four quadrants. Additionally, there should be an atrium in the center providing additional windows for the middle of the building.

That many students sharing a single TV every evening is not going to work out, and if you want a 'study space' (which is psychologically healthy and strategic), you'll have to do it in the main entertainment area or leave the building.

Each 'house' at this size should have 2 public areas, and there should probably be one house at each corner, and one at each face, rather than 4 corners and 2 on the same face.

Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#92

Post by rtkwe »

oh_sigh wrote: post #72
lelandfe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his thinking is more nuanced than those shitting on it To be fair, an architect with 15 years on the UCSB Review Committee resigned over this... so it's not just outsiders and the media who are bagging on the design. https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-...

Architects for his other buildings didn't resign though. Why do you trust this one specifically over the other ones who followed through creating the buildings?

His other buildings weren't so wildly divergent from the consensus about good building design either. The closest seems to be his University of Michigan graduate housing. In the building he does have windowless dorm rooms (often complained about) but there's only 7 of them off a shared kitchen and living room space instead of 70+. He took the design of Munger Hall and scaled it up almost directly with some rearranging and scaling, each room on the somewhat successful [0] UM Munger Dorm becomes a new pod of smaller rooms.

The designs are so different the relative success of the UM dorm shouldn't transfer much credibility to the design of the UCSB dorm. Going from sharing a lit common space with 7 people to 70 people is a massive change in the dynamics of those spaces. At a very basic level the UM space is owned and controlled by few enough people you can call it semi-private. At the UCSB level it's just a full public space which is a different dynamic.

https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2021/11/03/heres-what-its-like-...

https://i.redd.it/81yfb7wkxby51.jpg

https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2021/11/munger-hall-univer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__cfVWiAxSU

[0] I say somewhat because people hate the windowless individual rooms it has enough amenities that they still rate it highly. He's fully banking on the fake windows making the new smaller rooms palatable. While massively increasing the number of people you have to share your nearest source of natural light with. edit: even that conclusion isn't universal some people had a pretty bad time living in those dorms https://www.reddit.com/r/UCSantaBarbara/comments/qkmp5h/i_wa...

Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#93

Post by busterarm »

dymk wrote: post #75
busterarm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a windowless bedroom isn't some terrible tragedy that happens to you. It's a minor inconvenience and bit of adversity that is temporary. Probably about 20% of all of the people that I know who moved to New York to pursue their dreams lived for at least a year in an illegal windowless-bedroom shared apartment (they exist because there is demand for cheap housing). Young people need to be challenged with small b…

This is a good example of pointless suffering and self flagellation

"suffering".

We're talking about UCSB students here.

It's a school where wealthy, well-connected parents and administrators collude to skirt the rules to get their children admitted. It's a school where wealthy Chinese nationals send their children, because admissions is less competitive than the Chinese university admissions process and offers a better chance for their children.

It's ranked 5th out of all public universities. None of those kids are suffering and I would suggest you reevaluate what suffering is.

Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#95

Post by corobo »

amelius wrote: post #65

Suppose I wanted to crash my computer? See, asking this question doesn't really help in making software more crash-free.

Give it a good hard kicking (or I guess more realistically drop your laptop)

Solution: replace HDDs with SSDs

I think you have to be more specific for it to work faster, there's plenty of ways to crash a computer that doesn't even involve software never mind if you're writing the code too

Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#96

Post by busterarm »

rtkwe wrote: post #76
busterarm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the education were worth a damn, people would be climbing over each other to get into those dorms. The juice not being worth the squeeze is not the dorms' fault.

The goal when designing something isn't to be as shitty as will be tolerated. And people are doing lots to get these educations... going massively in debt seems like a pretty strong indicator that people want the education I'd say.

Correlation != Causation.

American kids go massively into debt because their parents, their legislators and their universities have largely failed them. Kids aren't given a proper financial education before making the biggest financial decision of their lives. Laws were written to make student debt the most secure form of debt ever for lenders. Schools flush with public money have done nothing but increase the costs of education in ways that are often hardly visible or impactful for their students.

American students get an incredibly poor ROI for their education on average. Pick your degree wisely.

Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#97

Post by thriftwy »

amelius wrote: post #65

Suppose I wanted to crash my computer? See, asking this question doesn't really help in making software more crash-free.

Because most of precautions are already applied and your computer no longer crashes that often.

Things were much, much worse 25 years ago.

Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#99

Post by hindsightbias »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #32
hindsightbias wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re going to need people to populate austere environments lile Mars, we’re going to need people used to living without windows. Works for the Navy.

Mars? That's your best argument? We're on Earth, so let's design for Earth.

HN was pretty enthusiastic about pod housing/hotels back in the day. Hip solution for affordable urban housing. All these tiny home homeless neighborhoods aren't much more than a closet even if they have a tiny window usually covered with foil or cardboard.

Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)

#100

Post by csdvrx »

lelandfe wrote: post #55
xyzelement wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I see in responses to you, Munger has designed other well-received dorms in the past so that gives him credibility on this topic. It doesn't mean he's right but it's a good chance his thinking is more nuanced than those shitting on it - especially coupled with the current article that describes how he thinks. This is total conjecture but I can imagine him doing something like this: Question: how do you make…

> his thinking is more nuanced than those shitting on it To be fair, an architect with 15 years on the UCSB Review Committee resigned over this... so it's not just outsiders and the media who are bagging on the design. https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-...

That's a call to authority.

Sometimes, we are stuck in a local optimum, and a new redesign is needed, which involves some tough calls and unusual solutions.

As for a bedroom without windows, when I sleep I like that my bedroom is dark. When I don't sleep, I'm not in my bed or my bedroom.

So I'm not exactly sure what people complain about his design.

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