My radical proposal: we take all his money, and his stuff, and make him live in a windowless box of his own design. Ventilation optional, but not necessary.
I'm genuinely curious to learn more about this: "Virtually every downtown in America stands as testament to this failure, with highways and surface parking lots standing where complex, messy, vibrant communities once did." I can clearly see the effects (and in some cases, like Boston's big dig, the attempts to reverse this), but I'd like to know more about the original decision-making and vision of the original projects. Do you have any recommended reading or resources?
It's like he wanted to play a real life version of Sims. This type of stuff raises my blood pressure, the pure amateurism of a profession because they may "know" words or concepts. There is a reason why those of us in professions spend ALL the time and money to be certified. And that's not even taking into account those who have years of straight experience from doing who are at times more competent than the professionals. This is type of activity destroys people's faith in professions and leaves the door open for every snake oil salesman to set up shop.
I, for one, am just really impressed that Charles Munger was able to design this monstrosity from his zeppelin near Paradise Falls, but I guess he also had help from his human-speaking dogs.
I was under the apparently mistaken assumption that outside of like, prisons, you couldn't have bedroom/sleeping spaces with no windows. Apparently not!
I'm not going to suggest that anyone actually watch the entirety of this film from 1971 about the redevelopment of Glasgow, but it's a pretty glaring example of Scott's point about building for a vision not for the people. The tenements of Glasgow were woefully inadequate for modern housing so instead of rehabilitating them, the city leveled them and built high rises that were an absolute disaster - like, couldn't get a stretcher or a coffin in the elevators disaster. The first 5 minutes or so of this film, between the destruction of what would now be considered dense walkable neighborhoods and construction of motorways in the newly freed up space, is enough to make you weep blood.
1) Setting aside the window issue (which apparently is technically in compliance with the California Building Code somehow), how does it meet fire code to have a building that houses 4,500 people and only has 2 entrances/exits?
2) Assuming the Michigan residence works (perhaps it does), what makes anyone think a project that works for 600 people is directly scalable to 4,500 people?
3) I doubt this ever gets built as designed, because the CEQA lawsuits (a uniquely California thing) are going to bog it down.
I spent my freshman year of college living in the (at least then) second-largest non-military housing facility in the U.S. — and WE HAD WINDOWS! Heck. One wall of the room was basically all windows, and I appreciate you working "fenestration" into this post because we were admonished about that A LOT which is what happens when you put about 1,800 undergrads into a building 18 stories high. Honestly? That place was hella fun. I mean, move-in weekend coincided with Bruce Springsteen playing at Fenway and us being able to listen to the concert once we opened our WINDOWS.
My radical housing idea: Because walls separate us from each other and our natural environment, residential buildings should not have them. Just roofs. If you're cold, put on a sweater. It's a small price to pay.
This feels like the architecture equivalent of every conversation I’ve had with a parent that just *knows* what food is healthiest for their child because having a child is the equivalent of a degree.
Mommy and/or Daddy blogs are the bane of my existence.
My high school began as an experiment school back in the 1960s, and a big part of that was not having windows. If students couldn't see outside, they couldn't be distracted by the beautiful weather that we're not at all known for during the school year. (This led to an untrue but common rumour that it'd used to be a prison before becoming our school.) As you might expect, this experiment only applied to classrooms, the admin parts of the building always had windows.
Anyways, the experiment failed miserably, and decades later they built a new wing that was essentially only windows. I only ever had class in that new wing first thing in the morning when I wanted to sleep through English or something, and got to enjoy the windowless classes the rest of the day.
My radical proposal: we take all his money, and his stuff, and make him live in a windowless box of his own design. Ventilation optional, but not necessary.
I'm genuinely curious to learn more about this: "Virtually every downtown in America stands as testament to this failure, with highways and surface parking lots standing where complex, messy, vibrant communities once did." I can clearly see the effects (and in some cases, like Boston's big dig, the attempts to reverse this), but I'd like to know more about the original decision-making and vision of the original projects. Do you have any recommended reading or resources?
It's like he wanted to play a real life version of Sims. This type of stuff raises my blood pressure, the pure amateurism of a profession because they may "know" words or concepts. There is a reason why those of us in professions spend ALL the time and money to be certified. And that's not even taking into account those who have years of straight experience from doing who are at times more competent than the professionals. This is type of activity destroys people's faith in professions and leaves the door open for every snake oil salesman to set up shop.
I, for one, am just really impressed that Charles Munger was able to design this monstrosity from his zeppelin near Paradise Falls, but I guess he also had help from his human-speaking dogs.
I was under the apparently mistaken assumption that outside of like, prisons, you couldn't have bedroom/sleeping spaces with no windows. Apparently not!
I'm not going to suggest that anyone actually watch the entirety of this film from 1971 about the redevelopment of Glasgow, but it's a pretty glaring example of Scott's point about building for a vision not for the people. The tenements of Glasgow were woefully inadequate for modern housing so instead of rehabilitating them, the city leveled them and built high rises that were an absolute disaster - like, couldn't get a stretcher or a coffin in the elevators disaster. The first 5 minutes or so of this film, between the destruction of what would now be considered dense walkable neighborhoods and construction of motorways in the newly freed up space, is enough to make you weep blood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AhnY89FkiM
so what my takeaway is that leaky ceilings are a sign of good taste
https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/q88xyr/flooded_ceiling/
I have a couple of thoughts:
1) Setting aside the window issue (which apparently is technically in compliance with the California Building Code somehow), how does it meet fire code to have a building that houses 4,500 people and only has 2 entrances/exits?
2) Assuming the Michigan residence works (perhaps it does), what makes anyone think a project that works for 600 people is directly scalable to 4,500 people?
3) I doubt this ever gets built as designed, because the CEQA lawsuits (a uniquely California thing) are going to bog it down.
I spent my freshman year of college living in the (at least then) second-largest non-military housing facility in the U.S. — and WE HAD WINDOWS! Heck. One wall of the room was basically all windows, and I appreciate you working "fenestration" into this post because we were admonished about that A LOT which is what happens when you put about 1,800 undergrads into a building 18 stories high. Honestly? That place was hella fun. I mean, move-in weekend coincided with Bruce Springsteen playing at Fenway and us being able to listen to the concert once we opened our WINDOWS.
Amateur architect here on the topic of water: Don't build a housing development on a flood plain.
My radical housing idea: Because walls separate us from each other and our natural environment, residential buildings should not have them. Just roofs. If you're cold, put on a sweater. It's a small price to pay.
UPDATE: a great op-ed from the architect who resigned in protest over this design, which contains answers to some of the questions posed about how this was even possible: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-01/ucsb-megadorm-santa-barbara-charles-munger-design
This feels like the architecture equivalent of every conversation I’ve had with a parent that just *knows* what food is healthiest for their child because having a child is the equivalent of a degree.
Mommy and/or Daddy blogs are the bane of my existence.
Anyone else getting major Ron Paul Funeral City vibes from this?
My high school began as an experiment school back in the 1960s, and a big part of that was not having windows. If students couldn't see outside, they couldn't be distracted by the beautiful weather that we're not at all known for during the school year. (This led to an untrue but common rumour that it'd used to be a prison before becoming our school.) As you might expect, this experiment only applied to classrooms, the admin parts of the building always had windows.
Anyways, the experiment failed miserably, and decades later they built a new wing that was essentially only windows. I only ever had class in that new wing first thing in the morning when I wanted to sleep through English or something, and got to enjoy the windowless classes the rest of the day.