Architect: Dystopian Dorm Design Is Dangerous Social & Psychological Experiment

[mongers]

That looks a lot like my Dwarf Fortress layouts.
Incidentally, Munger and I have the exact same amount of professional architecture experience.

No you have more, I very much doubt he's played dwarf fortress. 

[HisMajestyBOB]

That looks a lot like my Dwarf Fortress layouts.
Incidentally, Munger and I have the exact same amount of professional architecture experience.

No you have more, I very much doubt he's played dwarf fortress. 

It's clear he hasn't. There are no lava moats or trap lined corridors.

[PDH]

It's clear he hasn't. There are no lava moats or trap lined corridors.

Though there will be solitary people locked in rooms crying and distraught.

[Josquius]

That looks a lot like my Dwarf Fortress layouts.
Incidentally, Munger and I have the exact same amount of professional architecture experience.

No you have more, I very much doubt he's played dwarf fortress. 

It's clear he hasn't. There are no lava moats or trap lined corridors.

How do you know the plans that have to be explicitly followed to the letter didn't say to keep that stuff secret?
They lose their effectiveness if everyone knows where they are afterall.

[viper37]

What a bunch of snowflakes.

They prefer "architects".  But it's the same anyway.

[viper37]

So they get the money but they have to build it exactly as designed by a guy with no experience designing buildings....

apparently, he built a few like these all over the US.

[viper37]

I'm not opposed to tiny rooms and living quarters in principle, but to me this sounds and looks on the face of it like it has a very high potential for going wrong.

Munger apparently has no architectural experience, yet he's designing a building, the specs which must be adhered to exactly. Architecture is a fairly complex field, and in all my experience putting enthusiastic dilettantes in charge of designing complex systems almost inevitably leads to severely suboptimal outcomes. Or did Munger work with actual experts and just put his name on the design as a vanity project?

Architecture is closer to art than science, most of the time.
Engineering is important.  Architecture is all about how the building looks.  Well, not all, there are a few building code requirements to be observed, but still, the majority of the stuff is handled by structural and mechanical engineers.

From what I've read of the projects, he does work with architects, but they must respect his design philosophy.

[mongers]

I'm not opposed to tiny rooms and living quarters in principle, but to me this sounds and looks on the face of it like it has a very high potential for going wrong.

Munger apparently has no architectural experience, yet he's designing a building, the specs which must be adhered to exactly. Architecture is a fairly complex field, and in all my experience putting enthusiastic dilettantes in charge of designing complex systems almost inevitably leads to severely suboptimal outcomes. Or did Munger work with actual experts and just put his name on the design as a vanity project?

Architecture is closer to art than science, most of the time.
Engineering is important.  Architecture is all about how the building looks.  Well, not all, there are a few building code requirements to be observed, but still, the majority of the stuff is handled by structural and mechanical engineers.

From what I've read of the projects, he does work with architects, but they must respect his design philosophy.

Someone tried that approach before, iirc it didn't turn out too well.

[grumbler]

So they get the money but they have to build it exactly as designed by a guy with no experience designing buildings....

apparently, he built a few like these all over the US.

None of the others have anywhere near this size or density.

[Admiral Yi]

Everyone getting a single bed cubby hole is pretty cool.

[Syt]

If it's good enough for wage slaves workers in Hong Kong ...

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'd incidentally been reading about this a few days ago. To clear a few things up:

- As far as I can tell Munger is not doing the real architecture work himself, he is a dilettante, but understands that he is, so he's like coming up with the rough ideas but he has a real architect doing the actual work of drafting the plans and other design elements that he just wouldn't know how to do without any architectural training. He actually mentioned in one of his interviews that "if an architect doesn't like doing it my way, I just find a new architect that will." Which obviously suggests some "troubles" here, but it isn't AFAIK the case that he's drafting these designs with his own hand, he basically has the idea of a hyper dense dorm with single occupant bedrooms and maximized floor space, but real architects are doing the work of making the plans.

- The student to bathroom ratio isn't at all unusual in dorms I've seen.

- Munger said he was inspired to do this because lots of his family members who went through college complained about having to share a dorm room (often / usually with someone the university assigns as a randomized roommate), and he views this as a solution to both that, and the needs of the specific university to fit lots of people into a relatively small geographic area

I'm actually less concerned about the natural light issue than most, and am more concerned about the fact that there's only two entrances/exits. I have to seriously question if there's fire code / safety issues there.

The natural light issue I think is a bit overblown if you consider that these are very small dorm rooms that I think the intention is these kids use to sleep in and maybe study sometimes, but they'll be walking around campus every single day going to / from class, and there's plenty of hang out and communal areas that would have natural light. Lots of people sleep in rooms that don't have direct access to natural light, so I think it's really all about the context of how the students are living. If they are spending 90% of their time in those rooms it could be a problem, but I think that's atypical for most college students.

[The Minsky Moment]

I will fall back on the basic idea that "Hey, why not try something different"? response.

Sure.

Along those lines, while Berkshire Hathaway has a fine track record, I feel the formula is getting a little tired.  So my idea is put Rem Koolhaas in charge of reviewing and approving all investment proposals.  Does Koolhaas any background or experience in investment management?  Not that I know of but that's the whole point isn't it - find a brilliant guy who is a complete amateur and see if he can do better.  If Charlie Munger can design buildings, I have no doubt that Koolhaas can figure out how to get alpha returns.

[grumbler]

As Otto pointed out, Charlie Munger isn't designing buildings, he's using his money to prepare designs and entice schools into building them.  There's a Munger graduate residence hall at Michigan, somewhat similar to this concept, except much smaller and the "pods" all ended at a common room with windows.  Plus, each room had its own bathroom.

The ratio of one shower and one shitter per eight students may be close to what traditional dorms have, but scheduling is less flexible when it's one shower for eight than when it is four showers for thirty-two.

Btw, UCSB is the most attractive campus in the world, of those I've seen, and this anthill doesn't seem to fit the UCSB style at all.  I get that real estate in Santa Barbara is expensive, but $1.5 billion is a lot of money.

[The Minsky Moment]

He actually mentioned in one of his interviews that "if an architect doesn't like doing it my way, I just find a new architect that will."

He may not be preparing the architectural plans but he is providing the overall design, with the architect's task being to implement his scheme.