7 ms·

Munger also did the same thing for the University of Michigan's graduate residence building^; 95% of the rooms have no windows. ^ https://housing.umich.edu/res

Munger also did the same thing for the University of Michigan's graduate residence building^; 95% of the rooms have no windows. ^ https://housing.umich.edu/residence-hall/munger/ https://housing.umich.edu/residence-hall/munger/

testplzignore 5y ago
That building holds 630 residents. The proposed building holds 7x more.
theroqwpeo 5y ago
Reviews of this residence: https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduate-residences-ann-arbor?reviews_page=1 https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduat...
- zz865 5y ago
  Interesting, most reviews are fine with it.
- pepperonipizza 5y ago
  Thanks, it seems very well liked.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Not really - looking through the reviews, it's cheap and newly furnished, but almost everyone is concerned about the windows (even those who say they personally don't mind it seem to be well enough aware that it's a problem).
- awillen 5y ago
  Wow, did not expect those to come in at an 8.8.
- raldi 5y ago
  Students seem to love it. It's a shame that this sole piece of actual data is buried so far down underneath piles of speculative naysaying.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    Seems like they love it for the location, convenience and price. Not for the lack of windows. Granted, no windows are cheaper but still...
    - celtain 5y ago
      I don't think anybody is saying that the lack of windows is itself a good thing, even the "forced socializing" line of reasoning clearly uses the lack of windows as a stick to get people out of their rooms. It's just an acceptable tradeoff for a sizable subset of students.
- randomifcpfan 5y ago
  Surprisingly positive reviews.
- phatboyslim 5y ago
  I had the same initial reaction as most here when reading the article. This data has caused me to think more critically about the concept, thank you.
  - banannaise 5y ago
    A lot of the reviews amount to "well at least it's cheap" which is not really a ringing endorsement. When you build living spaces that are terrible to live in, they become inexpensive relative to the horror that is the current rental market. But that seems like a bad solution to rent inflation.
    - savingsPossible 5y ago
      Well, if they are better considering the cost, then they are better considering the cost... Maybe someone else can design a building that has similarly good/better reviews and gives students windows. But to just assume that there are unproven better cost/benefit options at the needed scale... Well, does not seem justifiable either
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Are the ratings reliable? Most of the 9 or 10 star reviews say the lack of windows is a problem, yet still give 9 or 10. There are very few low ratings. A 1, a 5, a 6, the rest 7+.
- nisegami 5y ago
  A lot of those reviews seem to be posted in late November 2019. Seems suspicious to me. Granted, I'd probably be fine living there.
- kpmcc 5y ago
  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.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    I agree, but I'd also challenge that we shouldn't be designing our permanent, 100+ year structures around pandemics.
    - graeme 5y ago
      Well….designing a building to be good for pandemics also means making it be good for respiratory viruses in general. You do, in fact, want to have 100 year water systems that would work in a cholera epidemic. Designing buildings for good airflow will probably not go out of style either.
    - ciabattabread 5y ago
      The reason old NYC buildings have radiators that are so hot, you need to open a window to let in the winter air, is because they were purposely designed that way. Because of the 1918 flu pandemic.[0] Also, there are a bunch of things that we consider normal that were born of crisis: [1] [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-05/the-curious-history-of-steam-heat-and-pandemics https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-05/the-curio... [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-famine-pestilence-and-design/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-famine-pestilence...
    - yardie 5y ago
      I'll wait for the medical profession to tell me the cure for a major ailment is a windowless, tightly enclosed space with limited circulation.
      - celtain 5y ago
        Has the medical profession told you that your current housing situation cures a major ailment?
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  This is a graduate residence hall and graduate students tend to be a much higher mix of foreign students — looking at the reviews, many are praising that it’s pre-furnished and they didn’t need to do a whole lot to get set up. It’s also been my experience that foreign students (particularly from Asia) are just used to cramped, windowless accommodations like this for student housing so it’s not as dystopian-feeling to them.
  - daniel-thompson 5y ago
    Hard to believe that they didn't use this in their advertising copy "Feels less dystopian than what you're used to"
- nineplay 5y ago
  Residents seem to like it overall but reading though them, most qualify them as "great except the rooms don't have windows". It feels mean, for lack of a better word. Maybe particularly in Santa Barbara with its beautiful sunny days. There's something dystopian about putting young students in windowless rooms and figuring "they'll get used to it". Next step is to save money by getting rid of windows in apartments, office buildings, etc. and everyone will spend their day under artificial lighting. There will be social clubs for people who want to see the outside world once a week.
  - tomtheelder 5y ago
    It's probably better in SB than just about anywhere else, since you can quite literally always just go outside. I think that's almost part of the "point" here. To try to demotivate students from sitting in their rooms. I don't like that approach at all, but I actually don't think windowless bedrooms are the worst thing in the world. I had a windowless dorm room for a year in a very cold northeastern city where I couldn't realistically spend time outside for most of the year. It was attached to a windowed suite common room and I liked my roommates, so it was no big deal. I think I would have suffered a lot had I been a real social recluse, though.
    - pa7ch 5y ago
      Trying to demotivate students from sitting in their dorms by making it a sad cramped place doesn't seem to gel well with the modern idea of psychological safety helping people get more done and take more risks. Its a stick instead of a carrot in your most personal place, your home.
      - tomtheelder 5y ago
        Yeah strongly agree there.
wongarsu 5y ago
At least there everyone seems to get their own bathroom. The UCSB version seems to have one bathroom and one shower for every suite of 8
- loeg 5y ago
  We had 2 toilets and 1 shower (in a single shared bathroom) per suite of 16 students at UW in McMahon: https://hfs.uw.edu/Live/Undergraduate-Housing-Rates-and-Information/McMahon-Hall https://hfs.uw.edu/Live/Undergraduate-Housing-Rates-and-Info...
  - canaus 5y ago
    Not sure what the point was of you bringing this up. Are you saying that you liked only having 2 toilets and 1 shower per 16 people? Are you saying that since your experience was that, others should have similar? Just trying to understand the purpose of you bringing up your anecdotal experience. edit: Also looking at the link it looks like two students get 1 private room with a window, and some even get balconies. There's outside courtyards as well. Not sure how this is similar to the design mentioned.
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      It's not uncommon, is the point.
danso 5y ago
Worth noting that the UM building is a significantly different scope and scape: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/07/heres_your_first_chance_to_see.html https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/07/heres_your_firs... It houses 96 suites, 6—7 bedrooms each. Each bedroom is 16x9 with their own private bathroom. In one of the blueprints in the UCSB article, there appears to be 1 bathroom per 8 suites [1]. To be fair, graduate housing is supposed to be a bit better than undergrad dorms — especially in regards to not having to share a bedroom with a total stranger. And maybe the UCSB's tiny single room design (windowless or not) will be a good tradeoff for not having to have a roommate as an undergrad. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_WUixhkwu4&t=32s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_WUixhkwu4&t=32s [1] https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/munger1.jpg?resize=1205%2C646?w=1024 https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/munge...
- raldi 5y ago
  I see two back-to-back bathrooms per eight bedrooms.
- tomtheelder 5y ago
  > there appears to be 1 bathroom per 8 suites That looks like two bathrooms per 1 suite, or 1 bathroom per 4 rooms. I never shared a bathroom with less than 3 other people in my four years at college, so that doesn't seem particularly out of the ordinary for an undergraduate dorm. The difference in size of rooms seems significant, though.
  - danso 5y ago
    Looks like it's might be 2 bathrooms based on this tiny floorplan image [0], I thought from the isometric image it was 1.5 (2 toilets, 1 shower). And it looks like there's maybe 2 common area toilets. The ratio seems fine in theory...I think my undergrad dorm floor had 2 communal bathrooms with 8 toilet stalls and 8 showers for 30-35 residents. I'm assuming intersuite sharing would become normal. The podsize also isn't that bad in theory — they aren't much smaller than I remember the single rooms in my dorm being. The big difference is that the single rooms had windows, but also allowed for lofted beds — e.g. you would put your desk under the bed, and there'd be enough room to have a small couch where the desk would normally be. The UCSB pod furniture appears to be fixed (but again, it's just an architect drawing) [0] https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/dorminset1.jpg https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/dormi...
pacbard 5y ago
I had a friend living at Munger at Umich and visited a few times. The vibe of the building is similar to an hotel. As you enter, there is a foyer with elevators. The upstairs floors have windowless corridors where you enter the suites. Each suite has a long corridor with doors to the rooms (4 on each side, if I remember correctly). Each room is on the "inside" of the building, so they don't have windows, but they have private bathrooms. The living quarters have a shared double kitchen (two fridges, two cooking ranges, etc) and a double living room (two couches and two tvs). This room also has a wall of windows so there is plenty of sunlight there. The suite I visited was coed and had graduate students from different schools living together. It was definitely an interesting vibe. As any dorm, there are other amenities that are shared with everyone like a patio on the roof, a gym, rec room, and study spaces. Also, all the rooms are furnished, so it might be a good set up for someone that doesn't have furniture or doesn't want to worry about it. When compared to other grad student housing options (Northwood 1-3 for single students or a shared room in Northwood 4-5), Munger is definitely an improvement (mostly it's location and the fact that is a new construction, to be honest) but it is a little bit more expensive than NW offerings.
- chubot 5y ago
  Hm interesting, except hotels are very dense and I’ve never been in a hotel room without a window. I believe it’s illegal. If it weren’t, then the market would show that people want windows.
  - atombender 5y ago
    Not illegal everywhere, and not uncommon, either. I was a little late booking a trip to Stockholm the other day, and of the few remaining quality hotels, most rooms were sadly listed as "No windows".
  - capableweb 5y ago
    > I’ve never been in a hotel room without a window You might not be able to extrapolate your own experience over all hotels, there are countless of hotels without windows, and it's surely not illegal everywhere.

testplzignore 5y ago

That building holds 630 residents. The proposed building holds 7x more.

theroqwpeo 5y ago

Reviews of this residence: https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduate-residences-ann-arbor?reviews_page=1 https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduat...

zz865 5y ago
Interesting, most reviews are fine with it.
pepperonipizza 5y ago
Thanks, it seems very well liked.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Not really - looking through the reviews, it's cheap and newly furnished, but almost everyone is concerned about the windows (even those who say they personally don't mind it seem to be well enough aware that it's a problem).
awillen 5y ago
Wow, did not expect those to come in at an 8.8.
raldi 5y ago
Students seem to love it. It's a shame that this sole piece of actual data is buried so far down underneath piles of speculative naysaying.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Seems like they love it for the location, convenience and price. Not for the lack of windows. Granted, no windows are cheaper but still...
  - celtain 5y ago
    I don't think anybody is saying that the lack of windows is itself a good thing, even the "forced socializing" line of reasoning clearly uses the lack of windows as a stick to get people out of their rooms. It's just an acceptable tradeoff for a sizable subset of students.
randomifcpfan 5y ago
Surprisingly positive reviews.
phatboyslim 5y ago
I had the same initial reaction as most here when reading the article. This data has caused me to think more critically about the concept, thank you.
- banannaise 5y ago
  A lot of the reviews amount to "well at least it's cheap" which is not really a ringing endorsement. When you build living spaces that are terrible to live in, they become inexpensive relative to the horror that is the current rental market. But that seems like a bad solution to rent inflation.
  - savingsPossible 5y ago
    Well, if they are better considering the cost, then they are better considering the cost... Maybe someone else can design a building that has similarly good/better reviews and gives students windows. But to just assume that there are unproven better cost/benefit options at the needed scale... Well, does not seem justifiable either
Symbiote 5y ago
Are the ratings reliable? Most of the 9 or 10 star reviews say the lack of windows is a problem, yet still give 9 or 10. There are very few low ratings. A 1, a 5, a 6, the rest 7+.
nisegami 5y ago
A lot of those reviews seem to be posted in late November 2019. Seems suspicious to me. Granted, I'd probably be fine living there.
kpmcc 5y ago
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.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  I agree, but I'd also challenge that we shouldn't be designing our permanent, 100+ year structures around pandemics.
  - graeme 5y ago
    Well….designing a building to be good for pandemics also means making it be good for respiratory viruses in general. You do, in fact, want to have 100 year water systems that would work in a cholera epidemic. Designing buildings for good airflow will probably not go out of style either.
  - ciabattabread 5y ago
    The reason old NYC buildings have radiators that are so hot, you need to open a window to let in the winter air, is because they were purposely designed that way. Because of the 1918 flu pandemic.[0] Also, there are a bunch of things that we consider normal that were born of crisis: [1] [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-05/the-curious-history-of-steam-heat-and-pandemics https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-05/the-curio... [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-famine-pestilence-and-design/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-famine-pestilence...
  - yardie 5y ago
    I'll wait for the medical profession to tell me the cure for a major ailment is a windowless, tightly enclosed space with limited circulation.
    - celtain 5y ago
      Has the medical profession told you that your current housing situation cures a major ailment?
wayoutthere 5y ago
This is a graduate residence hall and graduate students tend to be a much higher mix of foreign students — looking at the reviews, many are praising that it’s pre-furnished and they didn’t need to do a whole lot to get set up. It’s also been my experience that foreign students (particularly from Asia) are just used to cramped, windowless accommodations like this for student housing so it’s not as dystopian-feeling to them.
- daniel-thompson 5y ago
  Hard to believe that they didn't use this in their advertising copy "Feels less dystopian than what you're used to"
nineplay 5y ago
Residents seem to like it overall but reading though them, most qualify them as "great except the rooms don't have windows". It feels mean, for lack of a better word. Maybe particularly in Santa Barbara with its beautiful sunny days. There's something dystopian about putting young students in windowless rooms and figuring "they'll get used to it". Next step is to save money by getting rid of windows in apartments, office buildings, etc. and everyone will spend their day under artificial lighting. There will be social clubs for people who want to see the outside world once a week.
- tomtheelder 5y ago
  It's probably better in SB than just about anywhere else, since you can quite literally always just go outside. I think that's almost part of the "point" here. To try to demotivate students from sitting in their rooms. I don't like that approach at all, but I actually don't think windowless bedrooms are the worst thing in the world. I had a windowless dorm room for a year in a very cold northeastern city where I couldn't realistically spend time outside for most of the year. It was attached to a windowed suite common room and I liked my roommates, so it was no big deal. I think I would have suffered a lot had I been a real social recluse, though.
  - pa7ch 5y ago
    Trying to demotivate students from sitting in their dorms by making it a sad cramped place doesn't seem to gel well with the modern idea of psychological safety helping people get more done and take more risks. Its a stick instead of a carrot in your most personal place, your home.
    - tomtheelder 5y ago
      Yeah strongly agree there.

wongarsu 5y ago

At least there everyone seems to get their own bathroom. The UCSB version seems to have one bathroom and one shower for every suite of 8

loeg 5y ago
We had 2 toilets and 1 shower (in a single shared bathroom) per suite of 16 students at UW in McMahon: https://hfs.uw.edu/Live/Undergraduate-Housing-Rates-and-Information/McMahon-Hall https://hfs.uw.edu/Live/Undergraduate-Housing-Rates-and-Info...
- canaus 5y ago
  Not sure what the point was of you bringing this up. Are you saying that you liked only having 2 toilets and 1 shower per 16 people? Are you saying that since your experience was that, others should have similar? Just trying to understand the purpose of you bringing up your anecdotal experience. edit: Also looking at the link it looks like two students get 1 private room with a window, and some even get balconies. There's outside courtyards as well. Not sure how this is similar to the design mentioned.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    It's not uncommon, is the point.

danso 5y ago

Worth noting that the UM building is a significantly different scope and scape: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/07/heres_your_first_chance_to_see.html https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/07/heres_your_firs... It houses 96 suites, 6—7 bedrooms each. Each bedroom is 16x9 with their own private bathroom. In one of the blueprints in the UCSB article, there appears to be 1 bathroom per 8 suites [1]. To be fair, graduate housing is supposed to be a bit better than undergrad dorms — especially in regards to not having to share a bedroom with a total stranger. And maybe the UCSB's tiny single room design (windowless or not) will be a good tradeoff for not having to have a roommate as an undergrad. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_WUixhkwu4&t=32s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_WUixhkwu4&t=32s [1] https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/munger1.jpg?resize=1205%2C646?w=1024 https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/munge...

raldi 5y ago
I see two back-to-back bathrooms per eight bedrooms.
tomtheelder 5y ago
> there appears to be 1 bathroom per 8 suites That looks like two bathrooms per 1 suite, or 1 bathroom per 4 rooms. I never shared a bathroom with less than 3 other people in my four years at college, so that doesn't seem particularly out of the ordinary for an undergraduate dorm. The difference in size of rooms seems significant, though.
- danso 5y ago
  Looks like it's might be 2 bathrooms based on this tiny floorplan image [0], I thought from the isometric image it was 1.5 (2 toilets, 1 shower). And it looks like there's maybe 2 common area toilets. The ratio seems fine in theory...I think my undergrad dorm floor had 2 communal bathrooms with 8 toilet stalls and 8 showers for 30-35 residents. I'm assuming intersuite sharing would become normal. The podsize also isn't that bad in theory — they aren't much smaller than I remember the single rooms in my dorm being. The big difference is that the single rooms had windows, but also allowed for lofted beds — e.g. you would put your desk under the bed, and there'd be enough room to have a small couch where the desk would normally be. The UCSB pod furniture appears to be fixed (but again, it's just an architect drawing) [0] https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/dorminset1.jpg https://www.independent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/dormi...

pacbard 5y ago

I had a friend living at Munger at Umich and visited a few times. The vibe of the building is similar to an hotel. As you enter, there is a foyer with elevators. The upstairs floors have windowless corridors where you enter the suites. Each suite has a long corridor with doors to the rooms (4 on each side, if I remember correctly). Each room is on the "inside" of the building, so they don't have windows, but they have private bathrooms. The living quarters have a shared double kitchen (two fridges, two cooking ranges, etc) and a double living room (two couches and two tvs). This room also has a wall of windows so there is plenty of sunlight there. The suite I visited was coed and had graduate students from different schools living together. It was definitely an interesting vibe. As any dorm, there are other amenities that are shared with everyone like a patio on the roof, a gym, rec room, and study spaces. Also, all the rooms are furnished, so it might be a good set up for someone that doesn't have furniture or doesn't want to worry about it. When compared to other grad student housing options (Northwood 1-3 for single students or a shared room in Northwood 4-5), Munger is definitely an improvement (mostly it's location and the fact that is a new construction, to be honest) but it is a little bit more expensive than NW offerings.

chubot 5y ago
Hm interesting, except hotels are very dense and I’ve never been in a hotel room without a window. I believe it’s illegal. If it weren’t, then the market would show that people want windows.
- atombender 5y ago
  Not illegal everywhere, and not uncommon, either. I was a little late booking a trip to Stockholm the other day, and of the few remaining quality hotels, most rooms were sadly listed as "No windows".
- capableweb 5y ago
  > I’ve never been in a hotel room without a window You might not be able to extrapolate your own experience over all hotels, there are countless of hotels without windows, and it's surely not illegal everywhere.