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by foobarqux 935 days ago
Should students who live in them decide or should a billionaire make them live where he wants them to?
1 comments

Has any group of students ever decided how to design their on campus housing, or has that 100% of the time fell to a licensed architect?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make. Normally students would be able to say that they don't want windowless dorms. In this case Munger said that if they didn't build windowless dorms they wouldn't get dorms at all. What does this have to do with architects?
Students generally don't have much say over the design of their dorms.

And 80% of students who toured a demo space were positive or neutral on it.

No, Munger didn't say they would get no dorms at all if they didn't build it. He said he would not give them $200M if they didn't follow his plans. I'm not aware of his ability to unilaterally prevent the building of dorms on any campus.

What this has to do with architects is that architects don't sign off on unlivable spaces.

> Students generally don't have much say over the design of their dorms.

They generally don't care that much. If they care a lot about windows in the dorms should they be able to decide?

> And 80% of students who toured a demo space were positive or neutral on it.

Are they deciding if they get windows or not?

> He said he would not give them $200M if they didn't follow his plans.

Right, they needed dorms, Munger said I will give you dorms but I will make you live without windows because it pleases me. As far as I know they didn't have any alternatives.

> What this has to do with architects is that architects don't sign off on unlivable spaces.

The issue isn't whether the space is unlivable, it's whether the students are deciding on what spaces they are living in or are the subject to the depravities of a billionaire. By your logic why can't Munger mandate that full sized murals of himself be painted in every room, or that they have to eat gruel or whatever else entertains him?

Who, it should be said, have done some atrocious student housing.

I lived in dorms that were, to put it as a roommate did, designed in the same tradition as the Albuquerque jail.