The American Institute of Architects Santa Barbara (AIASB) has sent an open letter to the Chancellor of the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in opposition to the controversial Munger Hall student residence. The letter, delivered in email format, was led by AIASB President Tai Yeh and signed by 34 individuals, most of whom are affiliated with the AIA.
The open letter, dated November 5th, was first published by Edhat Santa Barbara and sets out the AIASB’s position that the “Munger Residence Hall as proposed, does not meet [health, safety, and welfare] requirements and that there is no justifiable reason to proceed with the project as proposed.”
“Our collective response to this proposal is not a critique of style, rather this is a critique of the unacceptable, inhumane living conditions that will no doubt have a psychological impact on its inhabitants and the community at large,” the letter reads. “This project shows complete disregard to the building’s scale and proportion in relationship to its immediate surroundings and the negative impact it will have to the community in which it’s located.”
The letter takes aim specifically at the scheme’s omission of windows from 94% of student bedrooms, highlighting concerns over the building’s impact on mental wellbeing and the natural environment. “Connection to our natural environment has positive profound impacts on our moods, stress levels and psyche,” the letter continues. “Further, the artificial daylight and air ventilation required by the proposed Munger Residence Hall fosters none of these basic essentials and degrades the planet by depending upon constant energy consumption.”
In a Q&A document published by UCSB last week, the design team behind the project addressed concerns that students would not want to live in Munger Hall by saying “Undergraduate students will continue to have ample choices among the more conventional, existing residence halls, campus apartments and off-campus housing options, allowing them to evaluate what makes the most sense for them. The campus currently houses more than 10,000 students in university housing, and Munger Hall will be available to those who prefer it.”
In response to this point, the AIASB letter argues that “UCSB is attempting to sell 10 floors of densely packed substandard cells as a housing 'choice' for undergraduate students. The reality is, 20% of the future undergraduate body will end up living in Munger Halls’ substandard housing because they have no other choice.”
AIASB also use the open letter to express their support and gratitude to Dennis McFadden, the architect and UCSB Design Review Committee member who resigned from the committee last month in protest of the scheme; a move which has propelled the controversy into the national spotlight.
“We are grateful to Architect Dennis McFadden for his service on the University Design Review Committee and for standing up against this project,” the letter says. “AIASB strongly agrees with Mr. McFadden and the many other voices of opposition and urges the University to take immediately action to halt and reconsider this project in its entirety.”
Since news of McFadden’s resignation broke at the end of October, the project has generated an active thread over on the Archinect Discussion Forum. Readers are invited to share their views on the scheme, and its surrounding controversy here or in the comments below.
7 Comments
do I need 2.3 Billion to call myself "Hobby Architect"? Would AIA/NCARB approve?
Yeah... seems to be rich person privilege. The laws don't apply to them (sarcasm).
Imagine lecturing Munger about investing ... doubt he'd take that kindly from an "amateur investor".
Unfortunately there's always been men in positions of higher power imposing their designs on professionals, from Robert Moses to billionaires commissioning their homes. This Munger incident belongs to the former. The usual argument is that professionals are too timid and lack the imagination that outsiders like Munger possess.
Well, good for the AIASB. I am surprised, but good for them!
If they were designing this monstrous building for a prison human rights activists would be "coming out of the wood work" in anger and protest and rightly so. This is the most inhumane design for a building intended for human occupation that I have ever seen.This the work of a meglomanic with no instincts for the mental and physical health of human beings.
For a prison, it actually wouldn't be the worst. I wouldn't take care about the opinions of "human rights activists" for designing a prison. Human rights activists would have prisons designed like a plush hotel suite of exquisite comfort. The idea is prisons are SUPPOSE to be worse living conditions than what minimum wage workers live in. If prison is better living conditions than the streets then they would continue to commit crimes just to go back to prison where they would have a comfortable bed, a roof over their head, and food. As it is with most jails/prisons today, jail/prison life is arguably better than the conditions that minimum wage workers live under.
Sending a person to prison is suppose to be a disciplinary action.
Now, having said that, Munger's dorm is more like a prison cell block in floor plan than it is a dorm. I would expect better design of the floor plan for dorms. This is not a judgment of the exterior or style which is actually not bad for a building. That's just the skin. It is the interior plan that is the issue that I see. It would be better for that building to be a classroom building with larger individual rooms than the prison cell size sleeping rooms.
Lawsuit on the way:
The public outcry against UC Santa Barbara’s Munger Hall has grown so loud that the City of Goleta has taken the position that “there may be no certainty as to whether the needed student housing will be built in a reasonable time frame.” Those were the words of Goleta Mayor Paula Perotte in a city press release on Friday that announced Goleta will sue the UC Regents for failing to provide student housing and that it now impacts Goleta revenue and the city’s own ability to house its workforce.
https://www.independent.com/20...
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