Architect: Dystopian Dorm Design Is Dangerous Social & Psychological Experiment

[Berkut]

But he isn't trying to donate to a college. If he wanted to do that, he would do that.

He is trying to try to see if a new design might work and be better.

This is much more like someone saying "Hey, I think it would be cool if we found out if there was amino acids in the ocean of Triton. Now, I don't know the first thing about how to go about that, but I have a shitload of money!"

I don't think it is at all untoward for someone to fund a project to find that out. I don't see how this is any different.

If some particular school doesn't care to find out, then fine - don't take his money. Just like if your astronomy department doesn't think finding out if there are amino acids on Triton is a good use of their time or your money, they won't ask for the grant.

I don't see this as an integrity issue at all. It is someone who wants to find something out, and is actually willing to put up their own money to do so.

Hell, if you want to worry about university integrity, there is a lot more worrisome things going on that this - like pharma funding drug research for profit via universitites.

[crazy canuck]

I am rather confident that this new "experiment" is almost certainly better then a 50 year old dorm room.

I lived in a dorm older than that.  Nice building; far superior to the Charlie Munger School of Architecture.

I don't see why we stop here.  Why not have Eric Trump propose the physics syllabus and Elon Musk draw up plays for the football team?  Money should decide.

If either of them want to fund a physics syllabus and some school is dumb enough to go for it, then I sure as hell don't care.

You should not treat universities like a commodity.  The academy matters and should not be up to the highest bidder.

Lucky for us, that is not the case.

But you said you would not care, so indeed we are lucky more people do care than dont 

[Berkut]

I am rather confident that this new "experiment" is almost certainly better then a 50 year old dorm room.

I lived in a dorm older than that.  Nice building; far superior to the Charlie Munger School of Architecture.

I don't see why we stop here.  Why not have Eric Trump propose the physics syllabus and Elon Musk draw up plays for the football team?  Money should decide.

If either of them want to fund a physics syllabus and some school is dumb enough to go for it, then I sure as hell don't care.

You should not treat universities like a commodity.  The academy matters and should not be up to the highest bidder.

Lucky for us, that is not the case.

But you said you would not care, so indeed we are lucky more people do care than dont 

And of course I said nothing of the kind. But thanks for playing. You can tell because my post doesn't say anything like what your strawman says.

Again, the emotional reaction to a new dorm design really is fascinating.

[The Minsky Moment]

But he isn't trying to donate to a college. If he wanted to do that, he would do that.

He is trying to try to see if a new design might work and be better.

Of course he is donating: "The construction of Munger Hall will fulfill visions for both UC Santa Barbara and the donor, Charles Munger.  "   https://sam.ucsb.edu/campus-planning-design/current-projects/munger-hall

If what you said was really his goal, why not buy land adjoining the university, construct the building, make it available to enrolled students, and see how many take up his offer?

THAT would be a proper market test.

[Berkut]

But he isn't trying to donate to a college. If he wanted to do that, he would do that.

He is trying to try to see if a new design might work and be better.

Of course he is donating: "The construction of Munger Hall will fulfill visions for both UC Santa Barbara and the donor, Charles Munger.  "   https://sam.ucsb.edu/campus-planning-design/current-projects/munger-hall

If what you said was really his goal, why not buy land adjoining the university, construct the building, make it available to enrolled students, and see how many take up his offer?

THAT would be a proper market test.

Come on Minksy. You are just playing semantics now.

I meant if he wanted to just generically donate money for the college to do what they like with it, he would do that.

That is not his goal here.

And your example would be a test for a new type of non-dorm, off campus housing. Not at all the same thing. Although if he wanted to do that, he certainly could - why do you think he doesn't just do that?

But really, this is most definitely talked out. I still do not see the objection here. He isn't asking some school to compromise their academic standards. He just wants to try a new dorm. Maybe its dumb. Maybe not. I still don't see the problem with trying, and I think the idea that somehow doing so will compromise some lofty ideals of academic integrity are rather seriously over-egging the pudding.

[The Minsky Moment]

He's asking the school to treat their students as guinea pigs in vast social experiment being run by an unqualified dilettante.  That's fine if you are running some Ayn Randish-inspired dystopia.  Or a brothel. But there is only one ethical way for a self-respecting university to respond to such a proposal: no thank you. 

[Berkut]

People use students as guinea pigs all the time. Universities try different things constantly - it's how they improve, and hence are "treating their students as guinea pigs" every time they try out a new instructor, or change the format of a class, or build a new dorm that isn't a carbon copy of the old dorm.

To say that different dorm rooms are by definition a "dystopia" is rather silly. I have no idea how Ayn Rand got involved. Much less brothels.

I guess if you look at a different dorm room design and being akin to running a brothel designed by Ayn Rand for Mad Max, I can see how this would be alarming. Just not sure how you get there....

[Sheilbh]

I mean we let worse people launder their reputations by naming buildings or entire departments (Oxford just auctioned off the naming rights to the world's oldest seat in moral philosophy).

He's an unqualified dilettante - but again, even worse than the billionaires in need of reputation laundering are architects. They're responsible for so many unworkable, useless Stirling prize winning buildings based on their own ideological and social views. So I don't really see the problem except it's someone outside the guild imposing their nightmare on residents.

When I was at university there was a very expensive new library (named after someone in private equity I think) that won shedloads of awards for its innovative and fairly attractive design. Unfortunately, everyone hated working in it and all the exciting promised features/ideas didn't work so the university had to spend a shedload on remedial work. Or the award-winning school that got rid of classrooms to have common learning spaces that lasted one term before they had to start installing portakabin classrooms with walls

[crazy canuck]

I am rather confident that this new "experiment" is almost certainly better then a 50 year old dorm room.

I lived in a dorm older than that.  Nice building; far superior to the Charlie Munger School of Architecture.

I don't see why we stop here.  Why not have Eric Trump propose the physics syllabus and Elon Musk draw up plays for the football team?  Money should decide.

If either of them want to fund a physics syllabus and some school is dumb enough to go for it, then I sure as hell don't care.

You should not treat universities like a commodity.  The academy matters and should not be up to the highest bidder.

Lucky for us, that is not the case.

But you said you would not care, so indeed we are lucky more people do care than dont 

And of course I said nothing of the kind. But thanks for playing. You can tell because my post doesn't say anything like what your strawman says.

Again, the emotional reaction to a new dorm design really is fascinating.

Your statement can only make sense if you are drawing a distinction between you saying you do not care about one university doing it being different from the academy as a whole.  That I suppose makes sense since you also use free market logic that students can just avoid the bad universities.  the point you are missing is that the universities you are not caring about are also part of the academy.

I am in no way reacting to the dorm design.  More to your idiotic stance on not caring if the rich can dictate how courses are taught.  It shows such a incredible lack of understanding of the importance of academic freedom and integrity.

[grumbler]

Saying that this dorm project is okay because, hey, it's just an experiment and maybe it will work so why get worked up about it ignores the reality that this is a very, very expensive gamble ($1.3B+) for the university and commits them to have 1/3 of their dorm population assigned to it.

There have been other Munger dorms built, on a much smaller basis (650 rooms of graduate housing at Michigan, cost $150M, and four buildings (600 rooms) for graduate housing at Stanford) and the only drawbacks that students at Michigan found were the very things that the UCSB building emphasizes: the lack of windows and natural air circulation.

This is not just an experimental housing unit, it is a massive gamble with significant downside (including, as PDH and I have noted, the creation of a significant eyesore on the most beautiful campus on earth), and the only reason it is being built like this is because it gratifies the ego of Charles Munger.

[The Minsky Moment]

To say that different dorm rooms are by definition a "dystopia" is rather silly. I have no idea how Ayn Rand got involved. Much less brothels...

I know you have a soft spot. 

For Ayn Rand.  Don't know about brothels.