A member of the University of California, Santa Barbara design review committee resigned this week to protest the school’s decision to move forward with a dorm design that would force thousands of students into tiny rooms with no windows.
Dennis McFadden submitted his resignation letter to the committee Monday, blasting the design as “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being,” the Santa Barbara Independent reported Thursday.
The proposed Munger Residence Hall was designed by billionaire Charles Munger, vice president of Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway. Munger donated $200 million to the building’s construction on the condition they use his design.
The hall “will fulfill the university’s commitment to provide not only more student housing, but housing that is both better and more affordable for students. It will do so with flourish and elegance,” a university press release said. “Increasing existing housing by 50% with single-occupancy rooms, the development’s visionary design elements are meant to maximize individual space for students and provide a living environment unparalleled in undergraduate housing, firmly planting the campus at the cutting edge of such construction.”
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The building would house a maximum of 4,500 students in single-occupancy rooms, the vast majority entirely closed off from sunlight. McFadden called the design a “social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates the university serves.”
The Independent reported Munger believes his design would force students out of their rooms and into common areas for more interpersonal interactions. But McFadden said there is “an ample body of documented evidence shows that interior environments with access to natural light, air, and views to nature improve both the physical and mental well-being of occupants.”
“The Munger Hall design ignores this evidence and seems to take the position that it doesn’t matter,” he added.
McFadden said he resigned from the design committee after 15 years because the process with Munger Hall contradicted their entire purpose, which he said was to ensure substantial dialogue and discussion on building designs.
UC-Santa Barbara spokesperson Andrea Estrada said that the university was “grateful” for McFadden’s service on the design committee and that the university has several external consultants because they believe it is a “valuable part of our process to consider multiple design perspectives.”
“We are delighted to be moving forward with this transformational project that directly addresses the campus’s great need for more student housing,” Estrada said in an email. “All our current housing projects are guided by our Campus Plan, which was developed through an extensive campus participatory process with the assistance of Urban Design Associates with the goal of providing affordable, on-campus housing that minimizes energy consumption, and reduces the number of students living in the neighboring community of Isla Vista and beyond.”
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Beyond the concerns about the impact the building’s design would have on its residents, McFadden also noted the design stood out from its surroundings, creating “an alien world parked at the corner of the campus, not an integrally related extension of it.”
