5 ms·
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
by xyzelement 5y ago
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 students the most miserable? Answer: create a dorm that discourages social interaction, and is far from classes and amenities.
Starting from that, you do the opposite: create a large, centrally located dorm where the design discourages sitting in your room and encourages use of shared spaces while benefiting from greater density and central location.
If the question is "are windowless rooms good?" the answer is "no." If the question is "are we willing to sacrifice bedroom windows so that we have grater communal life and better walkability" the answer is probably "yes, possibly."
Logically it's the same argument for why some people prefer to live in small city apartments when they could live in a much larger home elsewhere for the same price. The very nature of city real estate is tied to the nature of city life (both as a cause as an affect) and it's simply a tradeoff. Asked on its own "do you want a cramped apartment" the answer is always "no" yet people often opt for it in context.
- OneTimePetes 5y agoAnd all the stoner gamer students with the blinds down cheered.
- jquery 5y ago>well-received By whom? A suspicious site with terrible English and reviews like “you’ll get used to it” and “grat (sic) room”. If Amazon can’t keep scammy reviews away, how is some site like “veryapt” supposed to do so? It seems there is plenty of criticism of the Michigan project (even from residents)[1], but it also differs in a key point, in that all the rooms are suites, whereas the proposed project is even denser, with 8 bedrooms sharing 2 bathrooms a piece. [1]https://www.reddit.com/r/UCSantaBarbara/comments/qkmp5h/i_was_a_university_of_michigan_student_who_lived/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UCSantaBarbara/comments/qkmp5h/i_wa...*
- tim333 5y agoHighest rated here https://www.veryapt.com/Apartments-L7646-ann-arbor-central-campus?loc=&price_0min=&price_0max=&price_1min=&price_1max=&price_2min=&price_2max=&price_3min=&price_3max=&screen=&lat=&lng=&minimize_finder=&show_map=&sort_by=user_rating https://www.veryapt.com/Apartments-L7646-ann-arbor-central-c... Also good reviews on google - 4.5/5 similar to the above.
- sam0x17 5y agoCreating a dorm that is far from classes and amenities actual encourages social interaction, or it did for my dorm.
- thehappypm 5y agoHow far? I spent a semester at Rutgers and many students need to take busses many miles to get to class. It feels like like a campus community than just about any other school I’ve been on as a result.
- sam0x17 5y agoOh, I didn't imagine it could be that far. I meant more than a quarter mile = very far. I meant like being 200m from the dining hall vs 3 football fields from the dining hall -- you end up socializing more with people in your dorm if you're slightly isolated.
- lelandfe 5y ago> 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-protest-over-ucsb-mega-dorm/ https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-...
- csdvrx 5y agoThat'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.
- lelandfe 5y ago> That's a call to authority My comment was responding to a call for authority. I’m not using their position for anything more than to say that they’re informed. > When I don't sleep, I'm not in my bed or my bedroom. I’m similar now but I was in my room a lot when I was in uni. There were also plenty of kids on my hall who were in their rooms at basically all times, leaving only for class and food.
- csdvrx 5y ago> There were also plenty of kids on my hall who were in their rooms at basically all times, leaving only for class and food. If I may venture a guess, it may have been caused by the lack of better alternatives. Reducing the sleeping room to its core feature (sleeping!) may give more space to build rooms for other important features, while disincentivizing staying in one room at basically all times (which I see as generally a bad idea)
- dredmorbius 5y agoExpertise is authority with foundation.
- kloch 5y agoThis design reminds me in some ways of the disastrous Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis. It's demolition in the 1970's was prominently featured in the film "Koyaanisqatsi" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt_Igoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt_Igoe "Apartments clustered around small, two-family landings with tenants working to maintain and clear their common areas were often relatively successful. When corridors were shared by 20 families and staircases by hundreds, public spaces immediately fell into disrepair.[20] When the number of residents per public space rose above a certain level, none would identify with these "no man's land[s]" One would expect that a major University building would not suffer from disrepair but the psychological effect of "disowning" the common areas might remain. The apartments in Pruitt-Igoe were also deliberately small.