> This design came from an amateur architect, someone who has never designed ANY building before and is surely clueless about safety laws and even basic physical structural limits. To imagine the design has seen anywhere sufficient review by others who DO know what they're doing is assuming a lot.

This is false statement. The architectural design was provided by Van Tilburg, Banvard, & Soderberg, AIA.

While the story was about the architect's resignation, there's got to be a story here. Why would the school spend a billion dollars and tie its hands like this (circumventing its own review process and providing input for needed changes) to get a 200 million "gift"?

Did the university believe it couldn't otherwise house 4500 students for a billion dollars? Were there considerations involved other than student housing?

I think you're overreading the amateur architect angle.

Presumably, they didn't say "Hi, Charlie Munger, please draw up a building for us on a napkin."

It's in fact a barb that Munger is a non-practicing architect, and apparently ruffled feathers with the professional architect on the committee.

Which, from working with some prima donna architects, I am both unsurprised and unsympathetic about.

Building engineers ensure everything is to code. Architects fret about whether it looks and feels right.

Some architects are good at making livable spaces, but an architecture degree doesn't guarantee that, and a lack of one doesn't preclude it.

> Building engineers ensure everything is to code. Architects fret about whether it looks and feels right.

The idea that architects don't worry about building code is absolutely incorrect on a project of any scale.

Prima donna "starchitects" worry less, but that's because they've hired other architects to handle it.

So which one was the guy who quit?