Posted on 10/29/2021 5:33:39 PM PDT by algore
A consulting architect on UCSB’s Design Review Committee has quit his post in protest over the university’s proposed Munger Hall project, calling the massive, mostly-windowless dormitory plan “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being.”
In his October 25 resignation letter to UCSB Campus Architect Julie Hendricks, Dennis McFadden ― a well-respected Southern California architect with 15 years on the committee ― goes scorched earth on the radical new building concept, which calls for an 11-story, 1.68-million-square-foot structure that would house up to 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms.
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. Munger maintains the small living quarters would coax residents out of their rooms and into larger common areas, where they could interact and collaborate.
He also argues the off-site prefabrication of standardized building elements ― the nine residential levels feature identical floor plans ― would save on construction costs. The entire proposal, which comes as UCSB desperately attempts to add to its overstretched housing stock, is budgeted somewhere in the range of $1.5 billion. Chancellor Henry Yang has hailed it as “inspired and revolutionary.”
McFadden disagreed sharply with what the university has described as “Charlie’s Vision” for the benefits of a “close-knit” living experience. “An ample body of documented evidence shows that interior environments with access to natural light, air, and views to nature improve both the physical and mental well being of occupants,” he wrote. “The Munger Hall design ignores this evidence and seems to take the position that it doesn’t matter.”
So far, McFadden continued, the university has not offered any research or data to justify the unprecedented departure from normal student housing standards, historical trends, and basic sustainability principles. “Rather,” he said, “as the ‘vision’ of a single donor, the building is a social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates the university serves.”
McFadden explains he felt compelled to step down from from the Design Review Committee (DRC) after it became clear during an October 5 presentation that the dorm’s plans were already set in stone.
“The design was described as 100% complete, approval was not requested, no vote was taken, and no further submittals are intended or required,” he said. “Yet in the nearly fifteen years I served as a consulting architect to the DRC, no project was brought before the committee that is larger, more transformational, and potentially more destructive to the campus as a place than Munger Hall.” This kind of outlandish proposal is exactly why the committee exists, he said.
Not good. My dorm room at UCSB looked over the ocean and could see Santa Cruz Island out there.
It’s Cali, you can just crap outside...
Whenever I’d work in a windowless phone company building it seemed like the workers therein were rather odd. We used to call it the “Silo Effect”
That’s not architecture. That’s cramped prison quarters.
Howard Roark laughed.
Interesting. Under current household/apartment building code, bedrooms must have two routes for egress (most cases a window) in case of fire blocking the door. You would think college dorms would fall under this code, too.
ah more social engineering
Sounds perfect for COVID. /S
I was in Santa Cruz dorm with 2nd story view of the ocean just over the Chancelors house.
FT!
Beehive.
I’ve seen minimum security prisons with better amenities
No offshore oil rigs in Santa Cruz.
The amazing weather means you can open windows almost year round—if you have windows!
This is unhealthy and cruel.
I graduated from UCSB, and my wife worked in the Budget & Planning office as an architect. Incredible number of bureaucracy tales. So this kind of Munger Hall approach is no surprise.
I think it would increase the number to a science.
“Munger maintains the small living quarters would coax residents out of their rooms and into larger common areas, where they could interact and collaborate.”
So, medium security prison then?
Just plug into the Matrix, comrade....
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