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New UCSB Dorm. Also known as crazy billionaire's social experiment

Sbbruin

By Sbbruin
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Sbbruin

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It has been widely publicized that UCSB, and a number of other UC's including UCSD, have a major housing problem.  Proposed solution?  A mostly windowless 1.68 million sf monstrosity funded in part by a 97 yr old lunatic billionaire whose $200 mil donation is conditioned on it being built on his specific design.  And they are moving forward with it.  Could you imagine coming home all shitfaced and trying to find your little postage stamp room amongst thousands?  I'd just go sleep on the beach.

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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- The dormitory’s nine identical residential floors would be organized into eight “houses” with eight “suites” (shown here) with eight bedrooms. | Credit: Courtesy 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.” Sign up for Indy Today to receive fresh news from Independent.com, in your inbox, every morning. 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 A typical bedroom with a false window. | Credit: Courtesy physical and mental wellbeing 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. McFadden draws striking comparisons between Munger Hall and other large structures to illustrate its colossal footprint. 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. The project is utterly detached from its physical setting, McFadden goes on, and has no relationship to UCSB’s “spectacular coastal location.” It is also out of place with the scale and texture of the rest of campus, he said, “an alien world parked at the corner of the campus, not an integrally related extension of it.” Even the rooftop courtyard looks inward and “may as well be on the ground in the desert as on the eleventh floor on the coast of California,” he said. Each residential floor is divided by a single interior corridor branched by smaller hallways. | Credit: Courtesy “As a project that pushes economies of scale, prefabrication, and an alternate project delivery process,” McFadden concludes, “Munger Hall offers an answer to the question of how to resolve the housing shortage and growth pressures currently facing the University. As a design solution and a campus building, however, the project will long outlive the circumstances of its origin and will impact the life of the campus and the lives of its students for multiple generations.” UCSB spokesperson Andrea Estrada said while the university was grateful for McFadden’s service on the review committee, his comments on the Munger proposal and his resignation won’t stop it from being built. “The Munger Hall project and design is continuing to move forward as planned,” she said in a statement. “We are delighted to be moving forward with this transformational project.”

https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-protest-over-ucsb-mega-dorm/

Andy Dufresne's cell at Shawshank looks more inviting.

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Chewbacca

Chewbacca 7776

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9 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

 

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It has been widely publicized that UCSB, and a number of other UC's including UCSD, have a major housing problem.  Proposed solution?  A mostly windowless 1.68 million sf monstrosity funded in part by a 97 yr old lunatic billionaire whose $200 mil donation is conditioned on it being built on his specific design.  And they are moving forward with it.  Could you imagine coming home all shitfaced and trying to find your little postage stamp room amongst thousands?  I'd just go sleep on the beach.

https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-protest-over-ucsb-mega-dorm/

Andy Dufresne's cell at Shawshank looks more inviting.

Holy shit, why?

Man, some people are really good at making money and they start to think they're really good at everything.

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Hook1997

Hook1997 5354

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“Munger Hall, in comparison, is a single block housing 4,500 students with two entrances,”

I mean is the housing going to be free since donated?  Cause if so and they added a few more exits, why not?  Plenty of chicks in the dorm to bed in the your cubical….  

Edited by Hook1997
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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Jerry!  The Gauchos had sake' in the common areas.  You gotta get 'em out of their dorm drawers and down here or I don't have a focus group to sell the housing pilot project to Japanese investors.  

"Uncle Munger?"  

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19190

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5 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Eeeeeeeeeeverybody thinks they're an architect....

A Physicist, an engineer and an architect are sitting in a taxi.

The engineer says: What makes it drive?
The physicist says: Why does it drive ?
And the architect says: Your fare will be $17.45.

Edited by Fudge Nuggets
  • Haha 6
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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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13 minutes ago, txhorns said:

4500 students in one building with only 2 entrances/exits.  How is that not a fire safety issue?  How many elevators are in the building?  This all sounds like a logistical nightmare for the students.

30 minute commute time from the top floor to the quad?   Yeah, I think this guy and Dobie are somehow related.  

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

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2 minutes ago, South Austin said:

You know, the stupidest guy in my fraternity became an architect – after he flunked out of dental school!

Classic, and always a funny line.  

Frank Loyd Wright dropped out of college. Tadeo Ando, a brilliant Japanese architect known for his concrete structures was a boxer before turning to architecture apparently.

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Bobby_Batronic

Bobby_Batronic 1994

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18 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

Holy shit, why?

Man, some people are really good at making money and they start to think they're really good at everything.

Absolute truth. 
 

I once took a lady who’s husband donated a library to Dartmouth up to the school to chew out the president and whoever else who would listen over the wording on the plaque. She spent $50k in transportation because she fancied herself a wordsmith. 

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Chewbacca

Chewbacca 7776

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17 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Absolute truth. 
 

I once took a lady who’s husband donated a library to Dartmouth up to the school to chew out the president and whoever else who would listen over the wording on the plaque. She spent $50k in transportation because she fancied herself a wordsmith. 

I spent 12 years in the family office business and got to see it up close and personal many times.  Someone is really good at X, makes a shit ton of money, and then they believe they are the best at everything.  It's amazing to watch, but not in a good way.  Mind bottling.

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royiv

royiv 9300

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20 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

I spent 12 years in the family office business and got to see it up close and personal many times.  Someone is really good at X, makes a shit ton of money, and then they believe they are the best at everything.  It's amazing to watch, but not in a good way.  Mind bottling.

When people surround themselves by bootlickers that they'll them that their shit doesn't stink, they begin to believe it.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89656

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16 hours ago, Rockwell Torrey said:

Looks like a place that would make it difficult to keep your side strange a secret from your girlfriends.

On the flip side, it's easy for your girlfriend to shoot you and your side piece and everybody else who shares the common area and knew you were cheating on her.

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