OT: Munger's windowless dorm at UCSB (aka the "Big House II")
For those who haven't been following this, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet's Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway and major Michigan benefactor, has given UC Santa Barbara $200 million to build an 11 story, 4500 student dorm to help alleviate the critical housing shortage at the university. There are only two exits at the proposed dorm and it would be considered the 8th most dense neighborhood in the world. The Internet has been set ablaze by all of the articles on this over the past few days.
Not only do 94% of the single rooms not have a window, but the roof courtyard doesn't even face outward, which is a big negative at a school which is located right on the ocean.
One of the lead architects for the school resigned because he pretty much called it "architectural malpractice".
The school has a conundrum. Either accept the $200 million from Munger, and follow his blueprints to a tee (a requirement or else they lose the money), or do without the money and risk nothing being built. Total price tag is $1.5 billion.
UCSB has a major housing shortage. They have been housing students at local hotels this semester. Major screwup as they accepted too many students because of the uncertainty surrounding COVID and admissions yield.
My own daughter, accepted at Michigan and UCSB, is attending ASU Honors. UCSB was her second choice. Many of her friends attend UCSB as we live in SoCal. Their parents are outraged with the school, even though the dorm won't be built until at least 2025.
What could go wrong with a 97 year old donor telling 18 or 19 year old kids to suck it up and live in a windowless dorm?
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:18 PM ^
This feels very much like Charlie Munger undertaking his very own experiment in human decision making. I cannot wait to see how this plays out!
November 3rd, 2021 at 8:14 PM ^
The Munger Games.
November 4th, 2021 at 1:14 PM ^
We should have the right to give "multiple clicks (up or down)" one time per year :)
I would give this comment max up votes
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:20 PM ^
Either accept the $200 million from Munger, and follow his blueprints to a tee
Does he get to write this off as charity? It seems more like directing someone else how to spend your money than charity.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
Yes he would still get the donation write off. Pretty commonplace for there to be some level of restriction on money being donated to schools or charities. Most are not nearly this overbearing though.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:22 PM ^
If you read the CNN article, you'll see that we already have one on our campus.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/munger-residences-michigan-windowless/index.html
I had an interior cabin once for a five-day cruise and it didn't bother me too much. I actually slept more. I don't think I could've gone an entire school year without windows.
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:32 PM ^
On the one hand, I love sleeping where it's completely and utterly pitch black. The darker the better.
On the other hand, that's basically a jail cell.
November 4th, 2021 at 9:22 AM ^
Even jail cells have windows.
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:56 PM ^
What an arrogant asshole. "These are windows, just better." He's so magnificent, he can redefine what windows are.
November 4th, 2021 at 11:32 AM ^
I do not understand all the hate. Just because he is a billionaire does not mean he does not have a right idea on this. Just look at how high his building is rated in Ann Arbor (it is the highest rated on the veryapt.com). If the people who actually live in the building are happy, why are all these people who never lived in one complaining?
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
November 4th, 2021 at 11:54 AM ^
I lived there and it fucking sucked. The rooms were horribly designed, no fans in the bathrooms and no windows mean every time you shower the whole room becomes a sauna. Sharing an apartment with 6 people as a grad student is miserable, one bad apple fucks your whole life up. The amenities are merely on par with every other luxury building. You dont even get the benefit of cheaper rent, its 1100 a bedroom. Dont defend him just because hes a billionaire, we know from literally hundreds of studies that access to natural light is massively important. Prisons, even in America, ensure prisoners have windows in their bedrooms.
November 4th, 2021 at 12:36 PM ^
There's also a vast difference in scale. Imagine being about half a city block away from your nearest window - which you also have to share with 64 other similarly cooped up people.
I think many are not understanding the plan. There are eight 8-room pods per "house" and eight "houses" per floor. Each "house" has some windows at the larger shared area at the end. Only 25% of the 8 BR pods are at an exterior wall with windows. It's dystopian.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:22 PM ^
Also from Crains this morning (paywall):
The second reason Munger's name may be familiar to you is that you, in turn, are familiar with Munger Graduate Residences at UM in Ann Arbor.
Yes, it's the same Munger.
And yes, in many ways, it's the same concept, although on a smaller scale.
Munger told Bloomberg as much during an interview Friday, calling the UCSB proposal an "improved" design of the Munger Graduate Residences, which opened a few years ago on UM's Central Campus. He gave at least $100 million to the UM project, although Henry Baier, associate vice president for facilities and operations, told me Monday that there were no requisites that his design concept be followed.
But in an apparent moment of self-reflection, Munger told CNN on Monday that he regretted not putting (at the very least) artificial windows in the UM building like he wants in the UCSB building. (A Los Angeles Times columnist called the artificial lighting system indicative of a "dystopia.")
It should also be noted that the American Institute for Architects recommends operable windows in its guidelines for well-being, pointed out in the Los Angeles Times column. And CNN spoke with a public policy graduate student, Luiza Macedo, who described a weeklong quarantine due to a COVID-19 scare in her Munger Graduate Residence room as a particularly low point.
At UM's Munger Graduate Residences, students live in single-room occupancies, or SROs, many of which also do not have windows (although room for a queen-size bed, a study area and a private bathroom). There are large common areas the graduate students share with six others in a multidisciplinary setup meant to encourage collaboration.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:26 PM ^
Wow. That is a trash concept. Yet again people are in charge of things just because.
If I visited that campus and learned my child will live in that for at least a full school year...we would be leaving immediately. Right after lunch.
November 3rd, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
Hell, in Ann Arbor you rarely see the sun anyway from November to April.
But the sun is a big selling point at a place like UCSB. This seems like an old man with fuck you money saying, you know, fuck you.
November 3rd, 2021 at 5:11 PM ^
If it's 45 and sunny at any time in that period, everyone is out sunning themselves, trying to overcome sunlight deprivation depression.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:30 PM ^
Isn't it a safety concern to not have windows? What if there was a fire?
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:32 PM ^
Uhhh, you jump/climb out of the HD 4K LCD screen window.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:46 PM ^
You can in Facebook's new Metaverse without a problem.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:34 PM ^
Or an earthquake? Could be a mass tomb.
It holds 7X the number of students as Munger Graduate Residences at Michigan.
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
The 8th floor window is NOT a fire escape. Not in any dorm although I think you can jump out a 9th floor window in South Quad as the 9th floor is only one wing and it is under the first floor on the side of a hill.
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:48 PM ^
I'm glad you said it - there's a lot of hand waving in the comments! PSA: Please don't jump out of tall building windows during fires. PSA: Please don't rush for the exits during earthquakes. I'm worried that we have to say these things out loud.
I don't know about the wisdom of having two exits in a large dorm, but I presume that CA has some of the strictest building codes in the country, no?
November 3rd, 2021 at 8:00 PM ^
I presume that CA has some of the strictest building codes in the country, no?
Typical of the Elitist Liberal Left Coast. Can't even build a damn good fire trap there anymore. We've become a nation of pussies these days. Back when all Americans were real men, we didn't needed entrances, but now that Nancy Pelosi in charge, all of a sudden we need not one, but two ways in and out of a large buildings. What a bunch of bull crap, excuse my language.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:34 PM ^
As we should all know by now some rich old people making money is far more important than anybody else's well being
November 4th, 2021 at 10:16 PM ^
How do you figure that donating $200,000,000 is making money?
There is no indication whatsoever that he is making any money from this.
It appears to be merely a case where he is pushing what has been a popular idea for some time now: That there is so much specialization and resultant compartmentalization of thinking today that it inhibits progress. This has resulted in the hot concept that using the design of workspaces and buildings to push people into situations where collaboration will occur, particularly interdisciplinary collaboration The idea is that this will lead to great new ideas. He is obviously an extremely enthusiastic believer and he thinks that these buildings will prove the benefit of the idea and result in great benefit to the human race. He may be wrong but the idea that he is doing this because he is evil is absurd.
It is interesting how certain words trigger a Pavlovian response in some people. They have to regurgitate their foundational beliefs even if they are not appropriate to the current situation. In this case: old, rich, and white. (White was not actually written but it was known to all involved.)
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:42 PM ^
I get that it sounds perhaps not awesome, but also doesn't seem to be a crime against humanity as it seems to be regularly portrayed. Each bedroom has their own private bathroom and the bedrooms all have a shared living room, kitchen, etc... all of which have windows. I know a guy who's room in college was a tent in a basement. These students will be fine. The question of a rich dude dictating a public entity is much more interesting than the actual architecture itself.
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
Maybe the question of why this is necessary (i.e., why the community has prevented the development any other student housing to date) is also worthwhile, but that's not as clickbaity
November 3rd, 2021 at 7:38 PM ^
I couldn’t agree more. Addressing that sounds like a better (though probably more difficult and much less rabble-rabble-clickbaity) plan as opposed to begging eccentric billionaires for their money.
November 3rd, 2021 at 5:52 PM ^
UM CAUP grad here… this is an awful concept and should never be constructed, McFadden was right to resign.
Looking at the renderings in the article, it does not appear each bedroom has a private bath, rather two bathrooms shared by the eight occupants of the “pod”. Better than the mass bathrooms down the South Quad hall I suppose, but still nothing luxurious.
Personally, I would hate this sort of dwelling with seven other people in a shared pod, and could never live without real daylight and a view of SOMETHING! My Freshman South Quad window overlooked an alley, and we’d hear the garbage dumpsters being picked up at 600am, but at least we had SOME real light and outlook. I would be claustrophobic as hell in this place.
Add that to seven others with dissimilar habits, attitudes, views, schedules, considerations for noise, etc, It would devolve into a horror show within the first month of school.
November 3rd, 2021 at 6:32 PM ^
Well Michigan already has a munger designed dorm on its campus and has for several years
November 3rd, 2021 at 6:03 PM ^
These students will be fine.
How the hell do you know that?
I know a guy who's room in college was a tent in a basement.
I actually lived in a basement with a parachute over my bed for one year back in '75. It sucked, but I could be outside in the fresh air in 20 seconds because it was just a house on South Fifth. It was very, very different from the windowless cubicles that Munger is demanding.
November 3rd, 2021 at 7:01 PM ^
How the hell do you know that?
I appreciate you demonstrating my bemusement about how deeply OFFENDED many people seem about a single dorm at a state school in California. How do I know they’ll be fine? I don’t know, faith in the resiliency of others? I’m also just some rando on the internet, so I’ll save my OUTRAGE for more pertinent things.
What is your concern? That sleeping in a room without a window will lead to mass suicide where students just stream off a cliff into the ocean like lemmings? Will it be luxurious? No. Will it be uncomfortable? Probably sometimes. But it was also uncomfortable having a roommate is south quad who would come back drunk and turn all the lights on at 3am. I actually don’t really care about a college doing some dumb building choices.
I feel like the bigger issue should be that society has come to the point where there is such a concentration of wealth that the public relies on the whims and preferences of the elite class to fund what should be basic societal issues.
November 4th, 2021 at 11:58 AM ^
No, at Michigan each student has a queen bed and private bathroom. At UCSB each student has a twin bed and shares one bathroom with 8 other people
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:45 PM ^
A building designed by a 97-year-old billionaire who is a self-taught architect without any actual training in the field. What could go wrong? It's not my housing problem, so what do I know? But I think UCSB should say, "No, thank you."
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:51 PM ^
Is there any benefit behind such a design?
seems like a deathtrap
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
The benefit is they'll think living in a windowless pod is normal after graduation. And will be willing to pay for the privilege.
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but something is fucky with this whole thing.
November 3rd, 2021 at 4:53 PM ^
This is probably on the right track, unfortunately.
November 3rd, 2021 at 5:13 PM ^
Probably extremely energy efficient.
Oh, and it was donated - so no cost.
November 3rd, 2021 at 7:25 PM ^
Munger is donating $200M of the $1.5B total cost. That leaves $1.3B for someone to pay. I would ask Munger to pay for the whole thing or STFU.
November 3rd, 2021 at 7:27 PM ^
I mean it houses a massive number of people in a relatively small space, very centrally, in a city where real estate is at an insane premium. So, it's definitely not unreasonable. If there were an alternative plan that could spend the same amount of house and house just as many students with windows then this wouldn't even be an issue. But there's not.
November 3rd, 2021 at 9:01 PM ^
Agree totally. It’s blowing my mind that I have to read through 50 comments before getting to one that actually makes a valid point.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
The donation doesnt even cover the full cost ?
Then sorry no you dont get to design it .
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:56 PM ^
Right? that was my thought as well. Somehow they are coming up with the additional $1.3B. I'm sure they could build plenty of housing with that money and even throw in a window or two!
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
No windows, no way. This is egotism on a level that I frankly don't understand. He could give the $200 million, get his name on the building, even contribute to the design. Why is it necessary to go against common architectural practice when you're not even an architect? What's up with that?
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:51 PM ^
Were people upset when the U of M Munger graduate residence dorm was built without windows? I honestly don't remeber.
November 3rd, 2021 at 4:24 PM ^
I don't know but one person quoted in the article said that when she had to quarantine because of Covid in one of those rooms, it was "a low point." Can you imagine? It's like being put in solitary confinement.
November 3rd, 2021 at 2:56 PM ^
"Well they're just students, who cares if we end up recreating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on an ungodly bigger scale?"
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:02 PM ^
Typical asshole rich guy who thinks having money means he's always right.
The UCSB administration should tell him to take his billions and fuck off.
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:09 PM ^
Maybe this is a weird take, but I like this controversy because it has nothing to do with left/right political outrage, COVID or vaccines. Personally I don't think a windowless dorm would be that bad since in college I slept half the day anyways.
November 3rd, 2021 at 3:26 PM ^
Bill Gates is sharing vaccine chip tracking data with Munger, who plans to use it to track the undergrads he enslaves in his underground sugar caves.