Creepy 92 Yr Old Billionaire Designs New College Dorm, Consulting Architect Quits

[dannno]

I've been watching this unfold since 2016..

Charlie Munger to Donate $200 Million to UCSB for New Dorms
Thu Mar 24, 2016

Warren Buffett’s right-hand man Charlie Munger announced Thursday that he is donating $200 million to UCSB for state-of-the-art student housing, tripling the record gift he gave the school a year and a half ago.

Exactly what the dorms will look like remains unclear; Munger indicated he is only willing to donate the money if his design is followed.


At the UC Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco Thursday, the 92-year-old billionaire advocated for ultramodern student dorms to foster collaboration and academic success — like ones he helped bankroll at University of Michigan, among other colleges. “We’re talking about a minor revolution,” Munger, whose grandson attended UCSB, said, “but it’s a revolution of absolutely standard features.”


Munger stressed that there is “one huge catch” to his housing design: no windows — like Disney cruiseships’ artificial portholes where “starfish come in and wink at your children,” he said. “ … No one can tell it’s not a window,” Munger asserted. “Our design is clever. Our buildings are going to be efficient.” At the Munger Graduate Residences in Michigan, the individual bedrooms do not have windows but the common areas do.

https://www.independent.com/2016/03/...csb-new-dorms/

Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
Criticizes Munger Hall as Social and Psychological Experiment with Unknown Consequences
Thu Oct 28, 2021

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-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 cost. 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.

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 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 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.

https://www.independent.com/2021/10/...csb-mega-dorm/

[dannno]

NY Post picked it up

Architect bashes billionaire Charlie Munger’s windowless UCSB mega-dorm
https://nypost.com/2021/10/29/dennis...ers-usbc-dorm/

[dannno]

https://www.independent.com/2021/11/05/ucsb-munger-respond-to-avalanche-of-backlash-over-dormzilla/

UCSB, Munger Respond to Avalanche of Backlash over Dormzilla
Thousands Sign Petitions by Architectural Historians, Students to Halt Project

By Tyler Hayden
Fri Nov 05, 2021 | 5:51pm

UC Santa Barbara’s public relations machine has kicked into high gear to defend the university’s proposed Munger Hall dormitory, issuing a statement Thursday that highlights the anticipated benefits of the controversial, hyper-dense building concept while at the same time acknowledging its small, windowless bedrooms “may not be right for everyone.” Designer and backer Charlie Munger also rebuffed intense criticism leveled at him by architects across the country, calling detractors “idiots” and claiming in an interview with Architectural Record this week that those who actually study his models “go ape-$#@! for them.”


The drawbacks of living in a 10-foot-by-7-foot space without a window would be offset by an attraction to the dorm’s large rec rooms and study halls as well as on-site amenities, such as a market, bakery, and fitness center, Munger told the magazine, explaining, “It’s all about the happiness of the students. We want to keep the suicide rate low.”

Munger, Berkshire Hathaway’s billionaire vice chair who is partially blind and has described architecture as “a kind of hobby,” said he simply doesn’t see the problem with windowless single-occupancy bedrooms. “It’s quite endurable, especially with good ventilation,” the 97-year-old insisted. “Nobody minds going into a basement restroom and peeing because there’s no window.” Munger is donating $200 million toward the estimated $1.5 billion project on the condition his plans are followed precisely. He worked with VTBS Architects out of Santa Monica to draft the blueprints. An opening date is tentatively scheduled for 2025.

UCSB’s statement, printed as a Q&A with former vice chancellor and project leader Gene Lucas, says Munger Hall ― which would house 4,500 undergraduates on a far edge of campus and at 1.68 million square feet would qualify as the largest dormitory in the world ― was envisioned “for those students who want the experience of communal and co-living, but also want the privacy of a single bedroom.” Those not enticed by the idea could live at the university’s other residence halls or in off-campus apartments, it reads. Critics point out, however, that many students will have no choice but to reside at Munger Hall, given the school’s acute housing shortage and the record-low availability of off-campus options in Isla Vista and other nearby communities.


The bedrooms without windows ― approximately 94 percent of the units ― would feature “virtual windows” with a “fully programmed circadian rhythm control system to substantially reflect the lighting levels and color temperature of natural light throughout the day,” the statement goes on. The concept was inspired by artificial portholes in the cabins of Disney cruise ships. Fresh air would be pumped in by a powerful ventilation system, and natural light would be available in common areas and kitchens. “We anticipate that when not in class, at the library, or participating in campus activities, students will spend most of their daylight hours in these common areas rather than in sleeping areas,” the Q&A says.


In response to initial descriptions by opponents that the 11-story building would have only two entrances and exits, UCSB clarified Munger Hall would in fact feature 15 smaller access points around its perimeter. “Exits and exit stairs are designed to meet and exceed fire, life, safety and building code requirements to ensure safe and quick egress from the building,” the university said. “Additionally, mass motion computer models of different emergency scenarios have been run to ensure exit times from the building during emergency exit conditions are acceptable.”


Munger Hall attracted national attention this week ― inspiring articles and op-eds in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, VICE, Slate, and USA Today as well as news segments on NBC and CNN ― after the Santa Barbara Independent reported one of its consulting architects had resigned in protest over the dorm’s massive size, lack of windows, and extreme density. Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic for The New Yorker, called the plans “a grotesque, sick joke — a jail masquerading as a dormitory.”


In a separate interview with CBS MarketWatch, Munger again shrugged off the controversy, suggesting the pushback was based not on his design’s alleged shortcomings but on his vast wealth. “You’ve got to get used to the fact that billionaires aren’t the most popular people in our society,” he said. “I’d rather be a billionaire and not be loved by everybody than not have any money.” Munger previously donated $65 million to UCSB to develop a roomy residence hall for visiting physics scholars and gifted the university the 1,800-acre Las Varas Ranch.

Also this week, a group of six architecture history professors at UCSB created a petition to stop Munger Hall from moving forward. Like other experts who have spoken out, the group took exception with the dorm’s “small, windowless cells” and complained no research had been presented on the potential psychological effects such a “radical” design would have on its inhabitants. The petition ― which has garnered more than 1,700 signatures, including those of noted architecture historians throughout the U.S. ― also challenges favorable comparisons made by UCSB between the dormitory and another of Munger’s mostly windowless designs, the Munger Graduate Residences at the University of Michigan.


“The two buildings are very different,” the faculty group stated. “Munger Hall at Michigan is for graduate students, is less than one-quarter the size (380,000 sq. ft. versus 1,680,000 sq. ft.), and offers roughly one bathroom for every bedroom, whereas the behemoth planned for UCSB undergraduates offers just two bathrooms for every eight bedrooms. (And the artificial windows are just as unpopular at the Michigan dorm as one might expect.)”


In an interview, Richard Wittman ― one of the petition’s authors who studied at Yale and Columbia and is currently an associate professor in UCSB’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture ― said there might be some validity to certain details of Munger’s concept, at least in theory. “Maybe,“ he said. “But let’s test it first. Let’s see some data.” As it stands now, the project is essentially a $1.5 billion experiment without precedent. “If this was any other project, you’d be laughed out of the room for proposing something on this scale with no research,” he said. Wittman also called out UCSB’s public affairs department, which has lauded Munger’s “sweeping” and “stunning” vision, for sounding at times “like the official organ of a totalitarian state.”


Wittman and his colleagues were quick to note that their opposition to Munger Hall shouldn’t be interpreted as a denial of the severity of UCSB and Santa Barbara’s housing crisis. “That crisis, however, is in significant measure a result of UCSB’s own failure to fulfill the housing construction promises it made in its 2010 Long Range Development Plan,” they said. The proposal smacks of a “deus ex machina scheme that aims to accomplish in one building what the university has neglected to do over the previous 12 years.”


This Friday, the Santa Barbara chapter of The American Institute of Architects articulated its own opposition in a letter to Chancellor Henry Yang, who has similarly described Munger’s plans as “inspired and revolutionary.” “As architects,” the letter reads, “it is our responsibility to positively design the built environment in ways that support the health, safety, and welfare of building occupants, respect the natural environment, and enhance the community at large.” The chapter believes “unequivocally” that Munger Hall does not meet any of those standards and that there is “no justifiable reason to proceed with the project as proposed.”


Meanwhile, Tommy Young, a fourth-year UCSB undergrad double majoring in economics and geography, has created his own petition against the dorm that has attracted nearly 10,000 signatures. Young said he was inspired to do so when he learned Munger’s designs had already received UCSB’s stamp of approval but with no public review. “I really just want community voices to be heard on this,” he said. “Students, alumni, parents, prospective students ― they should all have a say. They should all have input.”


Young was especially disgusted by Munger’s deflection that critics are simply preoccupied with his wealth. “It’s disingenuous,” he said. “No, people aren’t mad because you’re rich. People are mad because you’re forcing a design down their throats they don’t agree with, and you’re not willing to budge.”


Young noted few ― if any ― people outside UCSB and Munger’s camp are in favor of the project. “You’re not seeing any petitions pushing for approval,” he said. He also questioned Munger’s prediction that tiny bedrooms would lure students into bigger common areas. Young’s own residence hall has small rooms, he said, and its communal spaces are still dead zones. “UCSB needs to go back to the drawing board on this one.”


While UCSB has approved Munger’s plan, it must still be vetted by the California Coastal Commission and the UC Board of Regents, where there will be opportunities for public comment. “I hope the administration listens,” Young said. “But who knows.”

[dannno]

https://www.independent.com/2021/11/...utalist-style/

Opinion
Student Housing and the Brutalist Style
UC Santa Barbara Should Learn from Le Corbusier's Folly


Unité d’habitation Marseille | Credit: Fred Romero / WikiCommons

By Frank Frost
Thu Nov 04, 2021 | 3:02pm

I graduated from UCSB in 1955. Ten years later I came back to join the history department, where I served until 2001. So I have been a witness all those years to the university’s fumbling attempts to deal with student housing. The current proposal is by 97-year-old billionaire Charles Munger, to stack more than 4,000 students in an 11-story cube with few windows. This sounds like science fiction, but according to a UCSB spokesperson, it’s a done deal, provoking the resignation of a distinguished architect from the design committee in outrage.


Munger has previously donated multimillion-dollar student residences of his own design to the University of Michigan, Stanford, and UCSB’s Institute of Theoretical Physics, among others. They have been built and are occupied and seem more conventional, although Michigan’s shares the windowless principle with the present proposal. Evidently Munger’s offer of $200 million toward the cost was enough for Chancellor Henry Yang to call the project “inspired and revolutionary.” The whole cost is estimated at a whopping $2 billion: revolutionary but not inspiring.


In fact, Munger Hall seems to have been inspired by a similar folly by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. Before WWII, Le Corbusier had been impressed by Soviet collectivist housing experiments. In post-war France, with life returning to normal, he persuaded the city fathers of Marseille to build what he called Unité d’habitation, a 12-story rectangular slab meant to house returning workers in stark, cramped rooms that would tempt inhabitants to escape to the communal areas to converse and exchange ideas — almost exactly Munger’s description of his present plan.


Le Corbusier also proposed building multiple apartment modules offsite that could be inserted into the building framework to lower costs, just like Munger’s plan. The Unité d’Habitation is said to have inspired the “Brutalist” syle of architecture.


Unfortunately for Le Corbusier, he was dealing with French people, not Russians, and despite all persuasion, local tradition claims he couldn’t get anyone to stay in Unité d’habitation for very long; the building is now partly a hotel and the rest greatly remodeled. The same fate is likely to befall Munger Hall unless the whole idea is rejected by common sense or, more probably, the Coastal Commission.


Forty-five years ago when I was still chair of the County Board of Supervisors, I was invited to a meeting at UCSB to discuss student population with other officials concerned about a looming water shortage. Four years earlier the Goleta Water District had declared a moratorium on new water meters. Water availabilty was a factor in virtually every county building decision and now the university had agreed to discuss a limit on student admissions. A smiling vice chancellor assured the assemblage that UCSB would be happy with an undergraduate population ceiling of 16,000.


Admissions remained fairly stable for years, but a drought in the early ’90s stampeded most of Santa Barbara County into voting to import State Water. Now we all had plenty of water––right? Why not bump the undergrads up to 24,000? What could go wrong?


The problem, as I see it, is not too little housing — it is too many students. State budget support for every university in the UC system is primarily based on the number of bodies admitted each year. A body is a body, and it is a well-known secret that the thousands of bodies that flock to the university’s most popular majors pay for the prestigious programs that bear a high cost per student. Thus, more bodies every year, leading to embarrassing mismanagement like having to stow freshmen in motels. At least, subsiddizing motels is probably cheaper in the long run than an empty $2 billion concrete block built in the Brutalist style.

[cjm]

"Let's build a dorm that we can convert into a prison quickly. We can probably get FEMA subsidies."

[Lindsey]

Aren't there building codes in California that require 2 forms of egress in any 'bedroom'?

[Lindsey]

"Let's build a dorm that we can convert into a prison quickly. We can probably get FEMA subsidies."

I got the feeling when he was talking about ventilation system that anything could be pumped through the vents...

[dannno]

https://www.independent.com/2021/12/...o-munger-hall/

UC Campus Architects Unite in Opposition to Munger Hall
Criticize Proposed Project’s High Per-Bed Cost and Large Energy Demand

Eight former University of California campus architects from Berkeley to San Diego have banded together to express their “extreme concern and opposition” to UCSB’s Munger Hall proposal. In a November 17 letter to the college system’s president, Michael Drake, and its board of regents, the group says the massive dormitory project ― which would warehouse 4,500 undergraduates in small, windowless bedrooms ― could have severe psychological effects on its occupants. “We ask that you take a step back and embrace the values of a humane environment, one that fosters health, safety, and welfare, instead of one that may forever harm generations of young students,” they wrote. Simply put, the project “is a disaster in the making,” they said.


The architects took special exception with the proposal’s price tag ― estimated in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion ― and noted the per-bed cost would top $330,000, making it the most expensive residential project in UC history that would inevitably drive up UCSB housing prices. By contrast, they explained, UC Santa Barbara’s San Joaquin Villages student apartment complex built in 2017 cost just $166,000 per bed. The group acknowledged UCSB’s chronic housing shortage, “but this social petri dish, so foreign to the character of the Santa Barbara campus, is not the answer,” they said. And the effects wouldn’t be limited to UCSB, they predicted. “A failed investment of this size is bound to ripple throughout the University system.”


Moreover, the architects continued, the 1.68-million-square-foot building’s lighting and ventilation systems would require a huge amount of energy to operate and would be “in direct conflict with the UC system’s Carbon Neutrality goal.” Finally, they said, “the current COVID-19 pandemic calls into question the wisdom of residential buildings relying entirely on mechanical ventilation.”


Munger Hall’s lead architect and partial funder, Berkshire Hathaway vice president Charlie Munger, has dismissed the near-universal criticism lobbed at his design by architects across the country. He was recently quoted as saying, “No two architects ever agree on anything.” “Ironically,” the letter concludes, “Mr. Munger’s proposal for the Santa Barbara campus has demonstrated just the opposite: America’s architectural community is speaking out loudly against it.”


UCSB issued a statement in response to the letter, calling the criticism of per-bed cost “misleading.” “The design is not complete, so the final number for construction has yet to be determined,” the university said. “In terms of floor area, Munger Hall is quite different from a typical residence hall in that it provides substantially more common areas, amenities and even spaces for academic use, which ultimately translates to cost.” When the final numbers are calculated, Munger Hall’s cost per bed will be competitive with other residence halls, “if not a bit less,” it said. “Ultimately, the goal for the project is to provide students a better housing experience at a lower monthly cost than they would find in Isla Vista.”


In terms of lighting and ventilation energy demands, the university said, its project team is working closely with the dormitory’s “architect of record” ― VTBS ― to ensure the project is “held to the highest standards possible, often above and beyond Building Code requirements.” The school said it “appreciates and understands” the concerns raised by the former campus architects but ultimately feels “Munger Hall was uniquely designed to help UC Santa Barbara meet the demand for safe, affordable, on-campus housing that students desire while also fulfilling the University’s obligation to support previous enrollment increases that were mandated by the California legislature and governor.”

[dannno]

Charlie Munger says he wishes cryptocurrencies had ‘never been invented’ and admires China for banning them
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/03/char...hinas-ban.html

[dannno]

The Poodle Snarls: Did Dormzilla Hoist Henry Yang by His Own Petard?
UCSB Chancellor Rumored to Have Pulled Plug on Charlie Munger’s Massive Dorm Project

https://www.independent.com/2023/07/...is-own-petard/

[Brian4Liberty]

The Poodle Snarls: Did Dormzilla Hoist Henry Yang by His Own Petard?
UCSB Chancellor Rumored to Have Pulled Plug on Charlie Munger’s Massive Dorm Project

https://www.independent.com/2023/07/...is-own-petard/

Hopefully it is cancelled. What a boondoogle. Standard procedure in California, where we also have the high-speed rail to nowhere.

Been a long time since I've actually stopped in IV. Could use some Woodstock's Pizza...

[dannno]

Hopefully it is cancelled. What a boondoogle. Standard procedure in California, where we also have the high-speed rail to nowhere.

Been a long time since I've actually stopped in IV. Could use some Woodstock's Pizza...

The IV Delimart a half a block down from Freebirds on Pardall makes some pretty good sandwiches too. The sandwiches and various dirty french fries, perfect for late night stoner missions.

https://ivdelimart.com/

Me and a couple of my friends were the first regular customers there almost 20 years ago, they made some outstanding falafels and were selling them for $3.. that didn't last long, they grew and grew, raised their prices, and I don't think the falafel is as good as it used to be. But the owners still recognize me and say hi whenever I go in, if they are around. They moved a couple doors down and expanded their operation about ten years ago, their windows were allegedly hit by Elliot Rodger's bullets.

[Brian4Liberty]

The IV Delimart a half a block down from Freebirds on Pardall makes some pretty good sandwiches too. The sandwiches and various dirty french fries, perfect for late night stoner missions.

https://ivdelimart.com/

Me and a couple of my friends were the first regular customers there almost 20 years ago, they made some outstanding falafels and were selling them for $3.. that didn't last long, they grew and grew, raised their prices, and I don't think the falafel is as good as it used to be. But the owners still recognize me and say hi whenever I go in, if they are around. They moved a couple doors down and expanded their operation about ten years ago, their windows were allegedly hit by Elliot Rodger's bullets.

Halloween in IV was always a blast. Is The Grad still open?

[dannno]

Is The Grad still open?

I didn't even know what "The Grad" was (turns out it was "The Graduate" bar), but apparently by the early 90s it changed from a bar to a music venue that hosted Public Enemy, Rage Against the Machine, Phish, Social D and Alice in Chains. By the time I got there, it was nothing, then by the time I left it opened back up as a lecture hall. I took a surf class and one day a week we would go there and watch an old surf movie.

They had the Study Hall bar when I was there, and apparently it was open for 26 years until this year, when it finally closed.

Did they even have Freebirds when you were there? That's been a huge staple.. admittedly got a little pricey, but still amazing grilled steak and chicken, burrito bar, nachos with anything you want on it. When I was there it was open 24 hours a day, there were occasionally lines out the door at 2am or 3am. Now there are more late night eateries open, they used to be the only game it town, so they don't stay open 24 hours anymore.

[dannno]

Halloween in IV was always a blast.

Halloween was off and on, it was really big when I was there, until the mid to late 2000s when they clamped down on it. Around that time the students invented "Floatopia" party on the beach some time after spring break with lots of drinking and floatation devices. It all got cleaned up the next day, but I heard rumors that some local rich kid attended and ended up drowning, they didn't find him until hours later or even the next day swept down the beach. The family was very influential and had a big name in town so they didn't want it publicized. The next year, the cops were stationed at all of the beach entrances, they closed down the beach. They used the excuse of trash and peeing in the ocean to shut it down.

So the students invented "Deltopia" which is basically an all weekend day/night party with girls in bikinis, guys in trunks during the day and night parties. They also tried to shut that down. But they don't understand, UCSB was always a party school and always will be. I don't care how good the school is. Some of the smartest people at the school are some of the hardest partiers. You work your ass off Sunday afternoon when you wake up through Wednesday, then start partying either Wednesday or Thursday night through Saturday.

I guess the big issue with the massive party weekends like Halloween and Deltopia was social media. I signed up for facebook around the time I graduated, but within a couple years it was huge and it led to a lot of organizing for out of towners to come in and party.. but we always had a lot of out of towners coming in to party on Halloween, that was the whole point.

Last time I went to a Halloween in IV for fun was around 2014. I was chaperoning my ex gf and her friends who were in their early 20s. The next few years I drove for Uber on the weekends and made bank on halloween driving people to and from IV and the bars.

[dannno]

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's longtime investing partner, dies at 99

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charl...qiF8lbeQ13FKL6