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.
I had to use the restroom so he directed me to the public bathroom on his floor. I’m standing at the urinal, doing my business, when a shower stall door opens, just a short distance away, out walks a 20 something young woman, towel wrapped around her and a second towel being used on her wet hair.
It was totally unexpected.
Those 'dorms' are not dorms in the sense of a free America. Those 'dorms' are CCP re-education housing in China Biden's vision of the future, with one bedroom next to the door and apart from the other bedrooms for security (bedroom of the 'trusty').
The windowless cells all access one bathroom. Re-education occurs at the table in the center. There is no interest in the mental health aspects of light and air in the 'student' cells - in particular, these are intentionally withheld to break them psychologically.
Note the authoritarian, unyielding installation of the prison style cell block without regard for public response - it sounds just like Fauci rolling out the CCP's plans for 'vaccinations'.
“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.
It's a prison, if you look at the cells and note their are only two entrance/exist for all those WINDOWLESS cells. So 4500 people are expected to exit out two doors in the event of a fire? Prison.
SNIP
"Currently, he said, the largest single dormitory in the world is Bancroft Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy, which houses 4,000 students and is composed of multiple wings wrapped around numerous courtyards with over 25 entrances.
Munger Hall, in comparison, is a single block housing 4,500 students with two entrances,” McFadden said, and would qualify as the eighth densest neighborhood on the planet, falling just short of Dhaka, Bangladesh. It would be able to house Princeton University’s entire undergraduate population, or all five Claremont Colleges. “The project is essentially the student life portion of a mid-sized university campus in a box,” he said.
While most of us are to be 'culled', Biden's CCP paradise requires workers, and workers will have to be taught the ways of slavery.
I was thinking welcome to the Borg but the Matrix crop-farming is about the same difference.
Wow, what a perfect analogy!
Having spent several years in dorms, I NEVER let my kids go away to college. Simply too many distractions in dorms, and now far too many risks (like a chick you never knew claiming date rape in your senior year).
They went local, and at one point, it made sense to move closer to the 4-year school so that they could stay at home.
A lot more room and private space than I got in the enlisted barracks...
Our son lived in a very similar designed dorm. The sleeping rooms did have small windows but were too small to accommodate anything but a bed and a tiny desk. The sleeping rooms were too small for the minimum legal size of jail cells. The dorm was subsequently demolished.
This design is a virtual prison. Even those inmates in the Super Max federal prison in Colorado have larget living spaces and small slit windows. I also fail to see how this design could possibly meet fire codes.
He’s probably more upset his firm isn’t going to get a huge design fee.
Actually, there are laws about the size of prison cells and the amount of natural lighting available to them.
College dorms, not so much.
CC
And one toilet? That’s more than disturbing. Prison cells all have a toilet and you can make pruno.
To REALLY coax them out of their cells, just set up a keg.
Not all cells have their own toilets. Medium security prisons sometimes have communal restrooms/showers. Maximum security? Absolutely.
CC
There are no windows underground.
I mostly worked with high security. Good point though. So UCSB has designed a funky no windows medium security prison in one of the more picturesque coastlines in central California.
It’s a LOT of money for such dire quarters. If I were an architect and saw those plans I’d walk.
You Dog that was fun!!
What an atrocity.
A kennel would be a better deal, as would a jail cell.
There is no area to be comfortable.
That table with those chairs is not a place to relax.
It looks more like a death trap that anything. What source of ventilation does it have and what happens in a power outage.
Or earthquake?
I’ll bet he doesn’t live like that.
Yeah, I don’t blame the guy. The design is dehumanizing
CC
This thing is the stuff of nightmares! When I saw this on Twitter yesterday, I first thought that it was the Babylon Bee, but then saw Munger’s name attached to it, and realized it’s a real.
They’re going to build it. In Santa Barbara. On the central coast of California, one of the most beautiful places in the world, with one of the mildest climates. Total travesty!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.