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The goal is to get the students out of their bedrooms. There's plenty of common space, and lots of really nice places to go study and socialize out of your bedr

The goal is to get the students out of their bedrooms. There's plenty of common space, and lots of really nice places to go study and socialize out of your bedroom. This is intended to promote real-life socialization, which is the only real reason to go to in-person college these days. Plus, everyone gets a single! My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is different.

lbriner 5y ago
Which is great except 50% of people are introverts and need space to recharge. How many people live like this in real life? That speaks to the choice of hanging out followed by "leave me alone". It sounds like an experiment but it could probably have been done slightly further "away from home" if it was about collaboration. Just have places to encourage people to hang out if they want to and not if they don't. Forcing them just feels like mental breakdown waiting-to-happen.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Or, you force socialization on a population that's increasingly turning inward, to the detriment of society in general. It's hubris that on one hand HN can bitch about how egomaniacal companies like Facebook and Google are, and yet on the other complain about how architecture designed to promote socialization is unfair. Where do we think those social-deaf, micro-optimizing engineers come from?
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Among other things, architectural design makes decisions about how space is allocated and how it will probably be used. Of course, architects get things wrong. The dorm I lived in undergraduate did a fair bit well--and also had some common space that was sort of out of the way and was hardly ever used. But one way or another, an architect is going to design things in a way that (they think) optimizes for certain behaviors and use whether that's socializing/collaborating or the maximum privacy/anonymity.
  - krisoft 5y ago
    > Or, you force socialization on a population that's increasingly turning inward, to the detriment of society in general. College kids living in dorms are turning inward? Do you have proof of that or that is just a hunch? > ... yet on the other complain about how architecture designed to promote socialization is unfair. The goal of making architecture promote socialisation is great. The complaint is not about the aim. The complaint is about how it is achieved. Bedrooms with no natural light or natural air circulation suck. We don't build houses like this because it is not a good idea. Saying that your aim was to promote socialisation doesn't change that.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  I detest architectural coercion. Who is this old rich fuck to force "socialization" (a dystopian word if there ever was one)? That's my business. Buildings and urban environments should be built to allow various degrees of social interaction based on one's own personal needs and determinations as you see fit, not some megalomaniacal lunatic's tyrannical and dehumanizing designs. This is the tyrannical streak running through modernist architecture. For some reason, some people with money see everyone else as rats or cattle that they can heard around as they please, for their "own good". In an environment that respects human persons and their individuality as well as their social nature, the environment is structured according to subsidiarian principles. The town square is where anyone can socialize with anyone in town. Next the building courtyard is where anyone in the building can socialize with anyone else in the building. Next, the living room or common area of an apartment is where anyone can socialize with anyone in the apartment (analogously for single family homes). Individual bedrooms are for total privacy. I don't need to be coerced out of my bedroom if that's where I need to be because some crazy billionaire high on his own flatulence says so. Be very wary of so-called "philanthropists". They are in love with their power to control and coerce, not the actual good. To quote C. S. Lewis: "My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position [imposing “the good”] would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under of robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some points be satiated; but those who torment us for their own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to heaven yet at the same time likely to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on the level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Sir, this is a Wendy's
- gbronner 5y ago
  Living like this is actually pretty common both at universities and as a young adult. You have private space, a shared kitchen/dining room, and the building has lounges and other public amenities. Your room is for sleep, and possibly study, though there are other places on campus with fewer distractions. You can choose to eat and work together in groups in your dining room. You socialize away from your suite so you don't annoy your roommates. The dorms that I used had all sorts of unpleasant features: -- giant shared bathrooms had gang showers, or required you go go down 2 flights of stairs and along a hallway for 100 yards -- shared larger rooms with multiple beds and desks, creating issues around differing schedules -- no kitchens or cooking facilities -- no food storage facilities, creating unsanitary conditions etc. As an example, a fairly common layout that I've seen is a 3-room quad -- two very small rooms with two bunk beds, two dressers and maybe a close adjoining a not particularly large 'common' room with 4 desks, perhaps a mini-fridge, and a beat-up couch. Munger's vision is a palace compared to this.
  - dave5104 5y ago
    > The dorms that I used had all sorts of unpleasant features Just because you had a poor dorm experience doesn't mean a brand new dorm built in 2021 needs to replicate that experience.
- celtain 5y ago
  >Which is great except 50% of people are introverts and need space to recharge. How many people live like this in real life? The vast majority of students? I don't think I knew a single person who lived without roommates when I was a university student. Freshman year nearly everybody shared a room with 1-2 other people, this new dorm would provide far more privacy than that.
alistairSH 5y ago
The goal is to get the students out of their bedrooms. There's plenty of common space, and lots of really nice places to go study and socialize out of your bedroom. This is intended to promote real-life socialization, which is the only real reason to go to in-person college these days. But there's zero evidence this building will actually accomplish this. And, according to the architect who resigned, plenty of evidence to the contrary.
k8si 5y ago
Introvert's nightmare. Also, who can study in a common area with all the noise?
- klyrs 5y ago
  Goal: socialization. Achievement: kids lying on their beds doomscrolling because the common space in the room is dominated by a massive table with exactly enough room for everybody to bump elbows.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  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.
  - dEnigma 5y ago
    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)?
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      Because that's what this proposal is replacing.
      - dEnigma 5y ago
        But the real alternative is another (better) proposal, not keeping things as they are.
        thehappypm 5y ago
        Sure, but the school can't justify spending triple per student than standard dorms cost. Even with the gift, the school needs to be financially responsible, and making a huge leap in quality of life would seem financially irresponsible when thousands of other colleges squeeze kids into forced doubles and triples. This is a step towards giving students both privacy and spaces to socialize, with some drawbacks that are a consequence of not having infinite funding.
pseudalopex 5y ago
Your roommates chose to have blackout curtains. And they could choose to open them.
- adolph 5y ago
  A student in a windowless room could choose to have a SAD lamp. https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-lamps.html https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-lamps.html https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/light-therapy/about/pac-20384604 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/light-therapy/ab...
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    Ah yes, let‘s make the students paying out the butt pay for an expensive lamp in a room that barely fits in said room.
  - suzzer99 5y ago
    Apropos name.
  - hhhhhhhhhhnnnnn 5y ago
    Perhaps Seasonal Affective Disorder is something we should consider when designing livable, humane spaces instead of relying on an artificial substitute. Happy, healthy students are more likely to socialize — ruthlessly value engineering their private living quarters as a way of forcing socialization is the opposite approach we should be taking.
wpietri 5y ago
Sure, we get the goal. It could even be an interesting experiment. Maybe some people would like it. Maybe lots of people. Or maybe it causes lasting psychological harm. But this is going to get built and used for decades regardless of the results of the experiment. > My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is different. You and your college roommates had a choice. Did everybody in your dorm do that?
- thehappypm 5y ago
  If you want to talk about "choice", this is not the hill that matters. So many colleges force their students to live on campus, and then squeeze them into forced doubles or even triples in conditions far worse than what's being built here.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Whether this is worse is exactly what's at question here. You can't just assume the answer.
dihydro 5y ago
I could assume that they would have those amenities also, but we have no way of knowing, and isn't that a concern in and of itself? In the article linked below, the artist renderings look more like an open concept market place like a mall or Boston Public Market. Fine spaces to eat, shop, and socialize, but not so good for study. https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2021/020361/absolutely-stunning https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2021/020361/absolutely-stunning
dymax78 5y ago
> My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is different. I'm extremely confused. Were your blackout curtains made of sheet metal and welded to the walls?
bobthechef 5y ago
Your college roommates had the option to black out their windows. People in this dorm won't have the option to open the curtains. That's the difference.

lbriner 5y ago

Which is great except 50% of people are introverts and need space to recharge. How many people live like this in real life? That speaks to the choice of hanging out followed by "leave me alone". It sounds like an experiment but it could probably have been done slightly further "away from home" if it was about collaboration. Just have places to encourage people to hang out if they want to and not if they don't. Forcing them just feels like mental breakdown waiting-to-happen.

ethbr0 5y ago
Or, you force socialization on a population that's increasingly turning inward, to the detriment of society in general. It's hubris that on one hand HN can bitch about how egomaniacal companies like Facebook and Google are, and yet on the other complain about how architecture designed to promote socialization is unfair. Where do we think those social-deaf, micro-optimizing engineers come from?
- ghaff 5y ago
  Among other things, architectural design makes decisions about how space is allocated and how it will probably be used. Of course, architects get things wrong. The dorm I lived in undergraduate did a fair bit well--and also had some common space that was sort of out of the way and was hardly ever used. But one way or another, an architect is going to design things in a way that (they think) optimizes for certain behaviors and use whether that's socializing/collaborating or the maximum privacy/anonymity.
- krisoft 5y ago
  > Or, you force socialization on a population that's increasingly turning inward, to the detriment of society in general. College kids living in dorms are turning inward? Do you have proof of that or that is just a hunch? > ... yet on the other complain about how architecture designed to promote socialization is unfair. The goal of making architecture promote socialisation is great. The complaint is not about the aim. The complaint is about how it is achieved. Bedrooms with no natural light or natural air circulation suck. We don't build houses like this because it is not a good idea. Saying that your aim was to promote socialisation doesn't change that.
bobthechef 5y ago
I detest architectural coercion. Who is this old rich fuck to force "socialization" (a dystopian word if there ever was one)? That's my business. Buildings and urban environments should be built to allow various degrees of social interaction based on one's own personal needs and determinations as you see fit, not some megalomaniacal lunatic's tyrannical and dehumanizing designs. This is the tyrannical streak running through modernist architecture. For some reason, some people with money see everyone else as rats or cattle that they can heard around as they please, for their "own good". In an environment that respects human persons and their individuality as well as their social nature, the environment is structured according to subsidiarian principles. The town square is where anyone can socialize with anyone in town. Next the building courtyard is where anyone in the building can socialize with anyone else in the building. Next, the living room or common area of an apartment is where anyone can socialize with anyone in the apartment (analogously for single family homes). Individual bedrooms are for total privacy. I don't need to be coerced out of my bedroom if that's where I need to be because some crazy billionaire high on his own flatulence says so. Be very wary of so-called "philanthropists". They are in love with their power to control and coerce, not the actual good. To quote C. S. Lewis: "My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position [imposing “the good”] would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under of robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some points be satiated; but those who torment us for their own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to heaven yet at the same time likely to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on the level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Sir, this is a Wendy's
gbronner 5y ago
Living like this is actually pretty common both at universities and as a young adult. You have private space, a shared kitchen/dining room, and the building has lounges and other public amenities. Your room is for sleep, and possibly study, though there are other places on campus with fewer distractions. You can choose to eat and work together in groups in your dining room. You socialize away from your suite so you don't annoy your roommates. The dorms that I used had all sorts of unpleasant features: -- giant shared bathrooms had gang showers, or required you go go down 2 flights of stairs and along a hallway for 100 yards -- shared larger rooms with multiple beds and desks, creating issues around differing schedules -- no kitchens or cooking facilities -- no food storage facilities, creating unsanitary conditions etc. As an example, a fairly common layout that I've seen is a 3-room quad -- two very small rooms with two bunk beds, two dressers and maybe a close adjoining a not particularly large 'common' room with 4 desks, perhaps a mini-fridge, and a beat-up couch. Munger's vision is a palace compared to this.
- dave5104 5y ago
  > The dorms that I used had all sorts of unpleasant features Just because you had a poor dorm experience doesn't mean a brand new dorm built in 2021 needs to replicate that experience.
celtain 5y ago
>Which is great except 50% of people are introverts and need space to recharge. How many people live like this in real life? The vast majority of students? I don't think I knew a single person who lived without roommates when I was a university student. Freshman year nearly everybody shared a room with 1-2 other people, this new dorm would provide far more privacy than that.

alistairSH 5y ago

The goal is to get the students out of their bedrooms. There's plenty of common space, and lots of really nice places to go study and socialize out of your bedroom. This is intended to promote real-life socialization, which is the only real reason to go to in-person college these days. But there's zero evidence this building will actually accomplish this. And, according to the architect who resigned, plenty of evidence to the contrary.

k8si 5y ago

Introvert's nightmare. Also, who can study in a common area with all the noise?

klyrs 5y ago
Goal: socialization. Achievement: kids lying on their beds doomscrolling because the common space in the room is dominated by a massive table with exactly enough room for everybody to bump elbows.
thehappypm 5y ago
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.
- dEnigma 5y ago
  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)?
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Because that's what this proposal is replacing.
    - dEnigma 5y ago
      But the real alternative is another (better) proposal, not keeping things as they are.
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        Sure, but the school can't justify spending triple per student than standard dorms cost. Even with the gift, the school needs to be financially responsible, and making a huge leap in quality of life would seem financially irresponsible when thousands of other colleges squeeze kids into forced doubles and triples. This is a step towards giving students both privacy and spaces to socialize, with some drawbacks that are a consequence of not having infinite funding.

pseudalopex 5y ago

Your roommates chose to have blackout curtains. And they could choose to open them.

adolph 5y ago
A student in a windowless room could choose to have a SAD lamp. https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-lamps.html https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-sad-lamps.html https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/light-therapy/about/pac-20384604 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/light-therapy/ab...
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  Ah yes, let‘s make the students paying out the butt pay for an expensive lamp in a room that barely fits in said room.
- suzzer99 5y ago
  Apropos name.
- hhhhhhhhhhnnnnn 5y ago
  Perhaps Seasonal Affective Disorder is something we should consider when designing livable, humane spaces instead of relying on an artificial substitute. Happy, healthy students are more likely to socialize — ruthlessly value engineering their private living quarters as a way of forcing socialization is the opposite approach we should be taking.

wpietri 5y ago

Sure, we get the goal. It could even be an interesting experiment. Maybe some people would like it. Maybe lots of people. Or maybe it causes lasting psychological harm. But this is going to get built and used for decades regardless of the results of the experiment. > My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is different. You and your college roommates had a choice. Did everybody in your dorm do that?

thehappypm 5y ago
If you want to talk about "choice", this is not the hill that matters. So many colleges force their students to live on campus, and then squeeze them into forced doubles or even triples in conditions far worse than what's being built here.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Whether this is worse is exactly what's at question here. You can't just assume the answer.

dihydro 5y ago

I could assume that they would have those amenities also, but we have no way of knowing, and isn't that a concern in and of itself? In the article linked below, the artist renderings look more like an open concept market place like a mall or Boston Public Market. Fine spaces to eat, shop, and socialize, but not so good for study. https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2021/020361/absolutely-stunning https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2021/020361/absolutely-stunning

dymax78 5y ago

> My college roommates had blackout curtains on the small windows in our rooms. Not sure how this is different. I'm extremely confused. Were your blackout curtains made of sheet metal and welded to the walls?

bobthechef 5y ago

Your college roommates had the option to black out their windows. People in this dorm won't have the option to open the curtains. That's the difference.