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Billionaire Seeks To Build Largely Windowless Dorm In 'Social and Psychological Experiment' (vice.com) 136

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The University of California, Santa Barbara is preparing to spend $1.5 billion on a new 4,500-person student dorm designed by a billionaire mega-donor whose layout so closely resembles that of a prison a consulting architect resigned in protest, according to the Santa Barbara Independent. From a report: The architect likened it to a "social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates the university serves" in his resignation letter. The building in question is the planned Munger Hall on the university's beachside campus, which the university's website says "will fulfill visions for both UC Santa Barbara and the donor, Charles Munger," a billionaire investor often described as Warren Buffet's "right-hand man." Munger has also financed the construction of graduate residences on the University of Michigan and Stanford campuses fashioned on his architectural ideas to promote collaboration and bonhomie. While the Stanford residences are essentially normal apartments, the Michigan hall resembles its UCSB sibling in that "most bedrooms don't have windows," according to VeryApt.com. The vision Munger Hall is fulfilling is alternately described two ways, depending on who is doing the talking. The universities that take his money -- on condition they use it to build his designs to his exacting specifications, as he reportedly considers himself an amateur architect -- describe such projects as having "a focus on providing ample interactive spaces for students" and "minimizing costs by maximizing the number of beds on a given site, employing the concept of repeatability..."
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Billionaire Seeks To Build Largely Windowless Dorm In 'Social and Psychological Experiment' More

Billionaire Seeks To Build Largely Windowless Dorm In 'Social and Psychological Experiment'

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  • No windows (Score:5, Funny)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @03:50PM (#61939965) Journal

    No windows sounds fine with me, but how is the fiber bandwidth?

    • This is just crying for Gates to supply some of those massive LCD art/fake window displays. Then the students can 'look' out at anything they choose, including their view from home.

      As long as it meets fire codes it should be fine.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by adrn01 ( 103810 )
        Fire code is a good question. Is it even possible for that many students, that tightly packed, to evacuate in case of fire in a timely manner?
        • Evacuations at my uni were usually /over/ an hour. About once a week, random times of day or night, clear the dorms, usually because someone was making popcorn or whatever else in their personal microwave. Worst part is that it happened often enough that Fire Department wouldn’t come unless they get a call from an RA to say if it’s legit. I’d lost count of how many times I’d be standing outside for an hour in the snow waiting for RAs to give the all clear. Plenty of times rounding t

    • I think this is the closest thing in the real world yet to a Terrafoam building, the only difference is that it has some windows instead of none and is made with conventional materials and processes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by uncqual ( 836337 )

        It looks like the construction is not quite "conventional" as pods are to be built off site and trucked to the site and "dropped in". Although this technique is more common in recent years (for prisons and cruise ships for example), it's not quite "conventional" yet.

        There are nine residence floors in the building.

        Each residence floor consists of eight "houses".

        Each "house" has a shared "great room" and kitchen (with 3 ranges, four dishwashers and four refrigerators), a laundry room, a game room, and two "to

    • It's like one of those Japanese or Korean game shows where people do humiliating and dangerous things for money . I guess the us has those now like naked and afraid.

      Perhaps he will make all the toilets live webcam with broken glass on the seats ? Sure it's nasty but the rent is free.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      No windows, is illegal. It's a death trap in a fire, flood, carbon monoxide (natural gas) leak, etc. You're allowed to not have windows in closets and bathrooms because you don't sleep in them.

      Now, is it possible to design a building that is "safe" without having windows? Yes. Because the building code says "two means of egress", which means it simply needs to have two doors on opposite ends, in every room.

      But you also need to recognize that any apartment less than 650sq ft is not an apartment, it's a walk-

  • There is one obvious benefit. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @03:53PM (#61939977)
    When it eventually is turned into a prison there won't be windows for the inmates to break. That's planning ahead, I tell 'ya.

  • Not windowless (Score:5, Informative)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @03:54PM (#61939979) Journal

    Here's a link to the actual plans [google.com]. You can see there are actually windows, and a lot of them, just not in the room where actual sleeping is done. That seems fine with me.

    • Re:Not windowless (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:05PM (#61940013)

      Here's a link to the actual plans [google.com]. You can see there are actually windows, and a lot of them, just not in the room where actual sleeping is done. That seems fine with me.

      Nor in the "bedroom clusters". The only windows seem to be in the common areas.

      It might work out for the students who are highly social, but the introverts or simply the ones focusing on studying aren't going to get any natural light.

      I'd be worried about the mental health effects of no windows not to mention the really screwy sleep schedules from lack of exposure to natural light.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'd be worried about the mental health effects of no windows not to mention the really screwy sleep schedules from lack of exposure to natural light.

        I think that's the point. The summary describes this as an "experiment", but is seems more like this asshole just wants to torture some poors for having the audacity to try to work their way out of poverty.

        • Or maybe its an experiment hoping to develop low cost student housing so that more students can afford to stay on campus rather than move into expensive off campus housing or have long commutes to campus from less expensive communities.

      • Re:Not windowless (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:38PM (#61940103)
        The 8-bedroom cluster has a smaller common area that could have a big window, but they decided to put the kitchen there instead, when the kitchen could easily have been put at the interior end of that room and given the entire cluster ready access to a pretty good amount natural light and external view. Instead these plans have a tiny window above the kitchen sink and *above head level* that you can't even look out of. That is just dumb. I'm inferring from the hoopla that this obvious adjustment was suggested and overruled in order to "encourage" residents to go to the larger common areas with the big windows. Rats in a cage indeed.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          To be honest, I'm more concerned about ventilation. When one person with COVID boards a cruise ship, they all get it. Will it be the same here?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Probably. And since there are no windows, they basically cannot do anything except wearing masks when they sleep.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jwdb ( 526327 )

          The 8-bedroom cluster has a smaller common area that could have a big window, but they decided to put the kitchen there instead, when the kitchen could easily have been put at the interior end of that room and given the entire cluster ready access to a pretty good amount natural light and external view.

          Please go look at the plans again.

          Page 6 shows the kitchens backed against what looks like an external wall. However, go back and look at page 5: the back of the kitchens on the north side of House 8 are touc

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It's designed to promote interaction and bonhomie. Can't do that if you're hiding in your bedroom studying all the time, right?

        Eventually CEOs, architects and random billionaires might figure out that people don't like being manipulated, least of all by the buildings they're in.

      • ... the introverts or simply the ones focusing on studying aren't going to get any natural light. I'd be worried about the mental health effects of no windows not to mention the really screwy sleep schedules from lack of exposure to natural light.

        They are free to walk outside and remain introverted and study in isolation. That is probably healthier. There also may be sleep schedule benefits to having a small bedroom that is more focused, sleep vs sleep/study/internet.

      • It's OK, Australia tried this nearly fifty years ago with Katingal, another "social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development", and there were no problems at all [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:Not windowless (Score:4, Informative)

      by bsolar ( 1176767 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:05PM (#61940015)

      From the article:

      McFadden said the university had provided no justification for ignoring established research that natural light and views of the outdoors are vital to healthy living, except to say they were bound to Munger’s vision.

      If the bedrooms have no access to natural sunlight, the natural light-dark cycle would be disrupted, which affects having an healthy circadian rhythm. Theoretically such light-dark cycle can be artificially replicated, but I found no mention of such thing in the article.

      • Re:Not windowless (Score:5, Interesting)

        by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:20PM (#61940061)
        Nope. Lots of flats around Europe, especially around the Mediterranean, have shutters on the windows that completely block out daylight. It's especially useful in the summer when the nights are short & people tend to stay out socialising later & don't want to be woken up by the sunrise. Some people rarely open the shutters on their bedroom windows & there are flats with bedrooms that don't have windows at all. It's not a big deal. On the other hand, people here tend not to spend that much time in their homes, preferring to be out & about among the other people in their communities. Perhaps in a culture where people tend to isolate themselves from each other more, windowless bedrooms could be detrimental?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by bsolar ( 1176767 )

          The shutters are not mainly meant to prevent the morning light to wake you up, but to prevent the sun to heat the interiors during summer.

          Note that in some of these regions air conditioning is still not so widespread, so it's quite important to keep the sun from entering too much during the day. Conversely, sleeping in summer with the shutters closed would be uncomfortably hot due to the limited air circulation.

          Furthermore, even if the shutters can be used to prevent the morning light to wake you up... that

          • I'm speaking from experience of living in the hottest region of Europe - temperatures routinely hit 45C (body temp is 36-37C). Yes, the shutters also keep the heat out during the day. BTW, I don't know of anyone who doesn't have air-conditioning & you can see all the air-con units mounted on the walls & rooves. Also, it's a dry climate so the temperature drops quickly at night & fans, rather than air-con, are sufficient for sleeping (running air-con all night would be expensive). Because it gets

        • People in college aren't going to be with the sun and waking up with the sun.

      • Many students don't have normal light-dark cycles anyway. Needing to study late into the night, sleep during some daylight hours is normal for many students. Having a bedroom where the occupant can control day/night via lights and not have to fight normal sunlight, window, and curtains may actually be a benefit to the student/occupant. It would at least be easier than relying on curtains.

        While it may not be mentioned in the article, would it be safe to assume the windowless bedrooms have interior lights

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by uncqual ( 836337 )

        Renderings of the interior seem to show every bedroom in a cluster with a "window" and clusters with a clerestory window above the sink.

        I wonder if, at least, the cluster "window" above the sink is a frosted pane with (perhaps optional by vote of cluster residents!) the ability to simulate night/sunrise/daytime/sunset cycles throughout the year. Perhaps the obviously fake (at least in most of the rooms) windows shown in the bedrooms have a similar feature (which, hopefully, the resident has complete control

      • You are assuming people do not leave the bedroom when they are not sleeping. They are not prisoners. They are free to leave their private room. And hasn't there been research saying the less you use your bedroom for other things (reading, internet, movies, etc) the better the sleep cycles?
    • or anything else you do in a dorm room...

      You can probably get away with this as kids are fairly resilient and it's generally only for a few years, but it will take a psychological toll. Ask they guy if he'd send his kids to live like that for 4 years...

      • Also worth mentioning that the dorm rooms are single-occupancy. If they are also relatively quiet, then it would have been a huge improvement over the quality of life in the dorm rooms I stayed at. People weren't "getting up with the sun" in college.

        • People weren't "getting up with the sun" in college.

          Well, most weren't but some of us were. I've always been a morning person, and I always tried to schedule an 8:00 class. My first term in college, all of my classes met in the morning except for an afternoon physics lab. Which meant I'd be getting back to the doem for lunch about the time my roommate was waking up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      I see no ventilation there, without good ventilation CO2 levels will build up and the last thing students need is brain fog due to CO2 levels being too high. Also many people are affected by lack of natural light, that can cause or exacerbate depression.

  • Great idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by AlwayRetired ( 8182838 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @03:55PM (#61939981)
    Billionaire is just getting the next generation adjusted to living in windowless sardine cans in the future.

  • Hope it goes better than ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:00PM (#61939999)
    ... Stanford's prison experiment.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      When this guy read about that, he really wanted to get in on the action.

      Someone should probably ask around his staff to see if they've noticed any mysterious disappearances or sudden departures.

  • Sadly already done at Santa Barbara (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:02PM (#61940003)
    Sadly there is already a building that was build at UCSB about 15 years ago that was immediately derided for its almost total lack of windows. I mean having a wall that overlooks a clifftop ocean view and not putting in a window just looks stupid and should be rejected by the university on grounds of preserving basic intellectual integrity.

    • This building has lots of windows, they just aren't in the bedrooms. All of the common rooms are positioned on the exterior of the building and the bedrooms are in the center.

      • Re:Sadly already done at Santa Barbara (Score:5, Informative)

        by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:28PM (#61940073)

        I looked at the plans [google.com]. What you say is partially true but misleading. The larger common areas that have windows are on the shorter sides of the rectangular building -- leaving most of the exterior area of the building having only small windows that aren't even drawn on some of the drawings. For the sub-units with 8 sleeping rooms and a smaller common area (likely to get the most use) - they have chosen to use the outer wall of that common area for the kitchen with a tiny window above head level over the sink. That whole WALL should be a window - this is Santa Barbara! Some of those look over wetlands towards the mountains and the others look over (since this building will be so tall) campus toward the ocean! Whatever moron decided to put the kitchen against the exterior instead of the interior wall of that common room should be sent back to college to live in a dorm.

        Honestly that thing reminds me most of the city blocks from Judge Dredd. Yikes. I don't see how that thing would even be legal from a fire safety point of view it is so dense.

        • The fire code came to my mind as well. A bedroom is supposed to have two exits, one the door, and the other an escape window, as in an openable window you can fit through.

          So are they going to use prison building codes?

          On the other hand, after the pandemic maybe the new crops of students will be used to living in the basement and not mind.

  • I would bet (Score:3)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:07PM (#61940023)
    Mungers home is massive, with huge windows, and plenty of outdoor spaces and natural light. But, if he wants to plow a billion dollars into a social experiment that packs thousands of undergrads into a tiny space with no windows, fine, lets all take notes while this thing goes up in flames, and the university can just repurpose the building in a decade or two. Or maybe hes invented a something truly new. Run the experiment and see.

    • if he wants to plow a billion dollars into a social experiment...

      Somebody fell for the lying headline, I see...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        To be fair both of you missed the fact that 'Social and Psychological Experiment' is in quotation marks clearly showing that it was some one else's statement (in this case the architect who left the project) as opposed to a statement of fact so you both got it wrong.

        Single quotation marks are what are grammatically correct for quotes in headlines if you didnt know https://grammar.yourdictionary... [yourdictionary.com] .

    • No, I think he just read The Big U [nealstephenson.com]

    • But, if he wants to plow a billion dollars into a social experiment that packs thousands of undergrads into a tiny space with no windows

      He's not paying for the building... He's donating $200 million and the school has to come up with $1.2 billion balance.

    • Munchers is a crazy old kook who managed to stay out of the home where nurses would scratch him, orderlies would throw him around (and ball gag him! See https://www.mddionline.com/new... [mddionline.com] ) only because of his wealth.

      Really, he should be the one with a vamp digging her fingernails into his flesh, not some poor innocent person who never had the wealth he had.

  • Despite paying for your education, you are not a customer and you are not respected in any way.

    That is not how education should work. That is how training obedient slaves works though.

    • Education is an investment in future generations & universities are centres for generating knowledge from which societies benefit, not a profitable business proposition. Framing education in consumerist terms undermines the values & purpose upon which successful education programmes are based. Everyone with the ability & the will to excel intellectually & academically should have access to free education, which is paid for from the taxes of those who are currently benefiting financially from

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I am not framing anything. I see that (at least in the US) you _pay_ for your education. That completely rules out it being an investment by society in the future.

        I completely agree that education should be free and still high quality. Sure, restrict access to the ones that can actually benefit from the respective levels offered, but do not make it a question of hoe much money somebody has.

  • Billionaire Seeks To Build Largely Windowless Dorm (Score:5, Funny)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:08PM (#61940027)
    Is he by chance also going to have the occupants play children's games to the death for his amusement, with the sole survivor claiming a large cash prize?

  • Submarine, aye. Or cruiser perhaps. (Score:3)

    by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:11PM (#61940033)

    Yah, not many windows and small space per student ratio. Sounds like an extremely roomy version of an SSN. Or an even roomier version of an SS....

    Not sure what the problem is, really, having spent time on an SSN. The lads/lasses in this building will have to spend more time in "public", but will have way more personal space than a squid does (basically, a submariner has a personal space not much bigger than a coffin, and public space smaller than your average McDonald's shared by the entire enlisted crew).

  • Plan for Immortality? His name will be on it. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Invisible Now ( 525401 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:11PM (#61940035)

    Maybe Munger will become a verb? As in: they really “Mungered” that design?

  • windows are ok (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:17PM (#61940047)

    A huge blank wall to install my 70+ inch tv is way better.

    If I want to look outside, I'm sure there are plenty of campus webcams.

  • if an *architect* thinks it would be too depressing to live in.

  • Ayn Rand: Fountainhead (Score:4, Insightful)

    by starworks5 ( 139327 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @04:46PM (#61940117) Homepage

    for some reason this sounds like an excerpt from the book The Fountainhead, describing an architect that demands his buildings to his exact specifications, despite protests from people he considers intellectually inferior, leading to him demolishing a building when they violated those designs, and being forced to go to trial.

  • I think the point of the design is that you live closely with 7 other people rather than just 1 room mate. I have experienced both the college dorm with just one room mate and the military dorm with shared bed room. You get a lot closer to the people in the shared bed room and it is what I would prefer and recommend for most people at this stage of their life.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      you live closely with 7 other people

      Interrupt the urge to jump.

    • So you have 7 other people interrupting your sleep as the come and go at all hours of the day / night? 7X the chances one of your roommates will be intolerable, and a much higher chance of ending up forced to live with someone totally incompatible.

      I've never liked even 2 per dorm room - it can be really unpleasant if you are not well matched - 8 in a room seems far worse.

      I guess its necessary since the cost of college has gone down so much.... oh wait...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dog77 ( 1005249 )

        a much higher chance of ending up forced to live with someone totally incompatible

        That is a fair point. In the military, you are forced to live together in a disciplined way and if someone is a problem they get disciplined by whoever is in charge. In college you don't really have that. Maybe back in a time when there was more discipline (Charlie Munger's time?) it would work better.

        7X the chances one of your roommates will be intolerable

        But it also works the other way, you get 7 flavors of people and so you are not stuck with just a single flavor you dislike.

        So you have 7 other people interrupting your sleep as the come and go at all hours of the day / night?

        In this plan you do have your own room for sleeping (I assume you can close the do

        • I see now, I misread the sketch before i went to the official document. That helps with a lot of the problems if there is at least modest sound insulation on the rooms. Noise does remain a potential issue - having a study and TV just outside of student rooms is not great. Better to isolated areas of rooms, and then common rooms a little ways away. At least my memory of college had quite a lot of noise in common areas but they were pretty far from the dorm rooms. (mostly)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dog77 ( 1005249 )
            Noise was a problem for me too. The library was a pretty good place to study and I never felt I needed to be next to a window. For me it is much better just to go outside.

            Here is a video of one of the Munger University of Michigan dorms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] It looks much better than I ever had, but these are graduate dorms and quite expensive (maybe $800 to $900 a month). So maybe not for everyone, but not as bad as some of the posts make it out to be.

      • "8 in a room seems far worse"

        It is. You have to navigate through 7 other people's habits, personalities, and flaws. And this is just asking for fights and arguments to break out.

        Fuck that shit. Either shack me up in the local Motel 6 (more tolerable than this 8 in a room crap) or I'll be goimg to a different school.

  • Just make sure windows can be retrofitted and it's all good.

  • Just saying.

  • I mean, the basement I used to live in didn't have windows either, so...

    • Agreed! When I was a student I had a window in an apartment that cost so much ($925/mo) I had barely enough money left to eat - I had to budget $2 per meal on average. That was even after student loans and my wife and I working pretty much every day, sometimes until after midnight. She got pneumonia from the grueling schedule and life was pretty tough for a year or two.

      My education was worth it in the end - I now earn a lot due to my education. Still, the cost of housing was crippling when I was a stude

  • Not the first time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @06:46PM (#61940327)

    Apparently ol' Charlie, (he's 97 years old), did something similar in 2013 at the U of M: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Most of the single bedrooms there are also windowless. I wonder what the guy has against windows; maybe it's just a way of packing 'em in tighter, or perhaps he's into forcing people together when they wouldn't otherwise choose each other's company.

    • I wonder what the guy has against windows

      They cost money. Both for the window itself, and for the structural load you have to transfer around the window.

      I'm guessing he's decided people only sleep in bedrooms, so windows there are a waste of money. Doesn't quite understand that some folks will want to spend time in the only private space they have.

  • If he was putting up the full 1.5B, maybe, but since he only wants to chip in a measly 200M, no. CNN had a photo of a floor. Ghastly. I went to school in the midwest and even my crappy dorm room had a window. Granted most of the year was a view of dirty snow, but it was a window. This is Santa Barbara, one of the prettiest areas in the whole country. And even my zero knowledge of architecture says he should have placed the 8 bedroom pod bathrooms opposite each other to share plumbing. You'd think a guy that

  • "Maybe we could build a torture dorm for children?"

    "BINGO! That's the winner. You're fired."

  • Beyond the psychological value of views and lighting, Windows exchange fresh air. California electricity can be cut off. So is there sufficient backup for the Heating Ventilation and Air conditioning systems? And will students be given battery lighting systems? Will these sleeping rooms be habitable during power failures without the reliable option of opening a window or having daytime natural lighting?

  • The building appears to be depersonalizing, dehumanizing and degrading. This guy funds buildings and then insists on designing them himself to foist his abusive ideas on people. Sounds like a psychopathic control freak.

  • I bet this billionaire loon never thought of this. And what the fuck made him think anybody would want to live in a windowless box?

    Nut cases are scary. Nut cases with money are dangerous.

  • At the hospital in Birmingham (UK) where I stayed for a couple of months, it was obvious that the layout of the wards was designed to make sure that each bed got access to natural light. This required more land area than a compact block with mostly windowless wards. I read up about this at the time. One of the problems experienced by long term patients is disruption of natural rhythms. This can actually be quite bad for recovery. Turning on artificial light in the day, and turning it off at night, does not

  • Architects should be forced to live in the buildings they design, and children's book authors should be forced to read their stories aloud every single night of their rotten lives.

  • Basically he designed a living situation that disobeyed traditional architectural rules because he is not an architect. Of COURSE the architects objected. It clearly breaks all the rules they were taught.

    Socratic question: If no windows in a bedroom is so bad, and 'prison-like', why do we allow a prison bedroom to have no windows? Yeah, I know everyone likes to punish prisoners, but that is supposed to be done intentionally, not just randomly. Any study showing exactly how bad a no-windows prison is?

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