Honestly, it sounds like he just "optimized" the heck out of a residence, and part of the tradeoffs is that on average people would rather have a small private room with a fake window and lower rent and than a shared room with a real window and higher rent. His Michigan building houses twice as many students in the same footprint as competing plans, and the competing plans used shared rooms. Admittedly, these aren't really ideal for COVID though.
As an aside, one of his other interesting architectural quirks is that any shared women's bathrooms are generally much larger than the men's, to deal with differences in how they're used.
Michigan: https://www.veryapt.com/ApartmentReview-a7222-munger-graduat...
Stanford: https://g.co/kgs/TbYAFH
Honestly, it sounds like he just "optimized" the heck out of a residence, and part of the tradeoffs is that on average people would rather have a small private room with a fake window and lower rent and than a shared room with a real window and higher rent. His Michigan building houses twice as many students in the same footprint as competing plans, and the competing plans used shared rooms. Admittedly, these aren't really ideal for COVID though.
As an aside, one of his other interesting architectural quirks is that any shared women's bathrooms are generally much larger than the men's, to deal with differences in how they're used.