Architect: Dystopian Dorm Design Is Dangerous Social & Psychological Experiment

[grumbler]

I don't know if this is better then a traditional dorm or not. Seems pretty straightforward to find out though - give it a try and see what people think.

Except that this is a $1.5 billion experiment.  That's a lot to risk for a university.

[Berkut]

I don't know if this is better then a traditional dorm or not. Seems pretty straightforward to find out though - give it a try and see what people think.

Except that this is a $1.5 billion experiment.  That's a lot to risk for a university.

I think they are the best judges of that though.

It's not like there are 20 universities out there giving this a shot, right?

[garbon]

What the students hate most of all — as I know; we had eight children — what they really hate is sharing a bedroom with an unrelated stranger.

I'm wondering if this is true at all.  I had three different roommates in college and all three became lifetime friends.   Having a roommate was one of the rites of passage for college when I went.

I'm kinda curious about the experiences of others here with college and roommates.  Would you have preferred to have half the room but no roommate?

I had mixed experiences with roommates. Some still good friends with and some not. My favorite times in college were when I got the whole room but no roommate assigned.

[garbon]

I don't know if this is better then a traditional dorm or not. Seems pretty straightforward to find out though - give it a try and see what people think.

Except that this is a $1.5 billion experiment.  That's a lot to risk for a university.

I think they are the best judges of that though.

It's not like there are 20 universities out there giving this a shot, right?

I'd be annoyed to have to pay room & board for experimental housing.

[Berkut]

I don't know if this is better then a traditional dorm or not. Seems pretty straightforward to find out though - give it a try and see what people think.

Except that this is a $1.5 billion experiment.  That's a lot to risk for a university.

I think they are the best judges of that though.

It's not like there are 20 universities out there giving this a shot, right?

I'd be annoyed to have to pay room & board for experimental housing.

Then don't choose to go to a college where that is what is being offered.

Personally, I would find the idea kind of intriguing. Although I would like the option of bailing if it turned out to be the nightmare people are claiming.

I suspect it will end up being neither the dystopian hellhole that its detractors are claiming, or the (artificial) sunshine, light, and wonderous well being its proponents hope. But just another dorm room building in a ocean of them.

Hell, I suspect that overall the fact that these will be new and modern alone will make the superior to most dorm rooms. My daughters dorm looks like it was built in the freaking 1950s.

[garbon]

Is that the only housing that exists or do you get a random chance of paying for a social experiment?

[grumbler]

My understanding is that this will represent about one third of the total student housing at the school.

[Berkut]

Is that the only housing that exists or do you get a random chance of paying for a social experiment?

Can we characterize any change in how housing is structured as a "social experiment"?

It's weird how resistant to change people are - I mean its freaking dorm housing. It kind of sucks regardless. It's designed to be tolerated for a year or two, and just about everyone who lives in a dorm is looking to NOT be living in a dorm by the time they are juniors.

I am kind of surprised at the level of concern over this.

A quick google search:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/934150/student-housing-accommodation-type-usa/

About 45% of student housing is dorms.

Of that half of them are over 50 years old.

Something like 60,000 students live in some kind of on campus housing.

I am rather confident that this new "experiment" is almost certainly better then a 50 year old dorm room. So it is an improvement over not building a new building at all.

What is the point of fear mongering stuff like this?

It will either work, in which case, cool - we learned something new!

Or it won't work, in which case, bummer. Try something else.

It's not like we are experimenting on freshman's ability to handle LSD sprinkled in their cheerios. It's a different setup for a dorm. And nobody is being forced to live in one.

[garbon]

Maybe your university was different. We had to live on campus our first year and didn't have a choice in residence.

[Berkut]

Maybe your university was different. We had to live on campus our first year and didn't have a choice in residence.

Then go to a different university.

Every one of my kids visits, checking out the dorms they would be likely to be living in was one of the main reasons to visit. I thought that was kind of dumb, personally, but hey, apparently it matters to some people.

[Savonarola]

I'm wondering if this is true at all.  I had three different roommates in college and all three became lifetime friends.   Having a roommate was one of the rites of passage for college when I went.

I'm kinda curious about the experiences of others here with college and roommates.  Would you have preferred to have half the room but no roommate?

First year I was assigned a black kid from Chicago and a white one from Midland, Michigan who "Wasn't a racist but..."  To make matters worse one liked the room at about 90 degrees F, and the other kept the windows open in the winter (which is a little chilly on the Lake Superior side of Michigan's upper peninsula.)  But that did force me to get out of my room and make friends.

The other years I had the same roommate and he has been a lifelong friend.  I wouldn't have preferred a single room.

One of the universities I looked at, GMI (Kettering University today) did have single rooms.  They were small, sparse and made of painted white cinder block; but they did have windows (with a view of downtown Flint, MI, demonstrating that there are worse things than not having a window. )

[garbon]

Maybe your university was different. We had to live on campus our first year and didn't have a choice in residence.

Then go to a different university.

Every one of my kids visits, checking out the dorms they would be likely to be living in was one of the main reasons to visit. I thought that was kind of dumb, personally, but hey, apparently it matters to some people.

That might be hard as I already graduated.

[The Minsky Moment]

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.

[grumbler]

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.

I lived in a dorm built in 1940.  I agree that it was much nicer both in atmosphere and in comfort than the new Munger places.  We had 2-person rooms, though, so Munger's kids would have hated it.

[Josquius]

The hall of residence I lived in my first shitty year of uni was built on the same designs as a Swedish minimum secruirty prison