Story at a glance
- An architect resigned from a consultant job on a project to build a mostly windowless dorm for the University of California at Santa Barbara.
- The dorm is being mostly financed and was designed by billionaire investor Charlie Munger.
- The 11-story dorm, which would house 4,500 students, is proposed to contain only two entrances and 94 percent of the students housed there wouldn’t have windows in their rooms.
An architect resigned from a consultant job on a project to build a mostly windowless dorm for the University of California at Santa Barbara, mostly financed and designed by billionaire investor Charlie Munger.
“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,” architect Dennis McFadden wrote in his resignation letter, according to the Santa Barbara Independent.
Munger donated $200 million to fund the $1.5 billion new dorm, which would bear his name as Munger Hall, with the condition that his blueprints for the project be followed to the T.
McFadden said he was “disturbed” by the plans for the building. The dorm, which would house 4,500 students, is supposed to be an 11-story, 1.68 million-square-foot building with only two entrances and leaving 94 percent of the students housed there without windows in their rooms.
America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.
Munger said the smaller-sized rooms and windowless feature would encourage students to spend more time outside and in common areas where they could collaborate.
McFadden said after going through the plans he couldn’t work on a building that he considered “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being.”
Chancellor Henry Yang previously referred to the project as “inspired and revolutionary” in July, and UCSB spokesperson Andrea Estrada told the Santa Barbara Independent on Thursday that McFadden’s comments and views on the project won’t prevent it from moving forward.
“The Munger Hall project and design is continuing to move forward as planned,” Estrada said. “We are delighted to be moving forward with this transformational project.”
READ MORE STORIES FROM CHANGING AMERICA
IN AMERICAN TOWN WHERE WI-FI IS BANNED, KIDS HACK TEACHERS’ COMPUTERS TO USE THE INTERNET
NEW YORK TO FORGIVE $125 MILLION IN STUDENT LOAN DEBT
10-YEAR-OLD BLACK GIRL HANDCUFFED AT SCHOOL IN HAWAII AFTER DRAWING PICTURE
changing america copyright.
