And all of the top reviews complain about the lack of windows. Even the positive reviews complain about the windows.

The top review is titled “No windows, no way”. The second review says it was great until COVID hit and they had to actually spend time in the windowless rooms.

Most of the positives seem to be about things like location and convenient access to other things, which has nothing to do with the architecture. The architecture is listed as the downside.

As a direct critique of the architecture, it's easy to shit on the building for lacking windows. But when taking a students budget and other tradeoffs into account it's actually one of the best places to live on campus.

Seems to me that HN users in this thread and UCS students aren't able to look past those tradeoffs.

As a student, I'm perfectly happy to have my own room with no windows. This is because (at least pre-covid when the facility was built), there's tons of stuff to do on campus and I won't be in my dorm room all that much anyway. The location is amazing. Even as an antisocial person, you get your own private space, which is something that many dorms don't provide on a budget. Yeah the lack of windows sucks, but I can live with it if it means I get my own private space and easy fast access to all the other things I need.

> Seems to me that HN users in this thread and UCS students aren't able to look past those tradeoffs.

It seems like HN users (and architects) aren't even considering that those tradeoffs exist. It's like they want to design a building without any regard to land use, cost or how many students it serves.

I see no acknowledgement that:

1. UCSB is located on a narrow coastal plain, where land is at a premium.

2. Giving every bedroom a window implies blowing up the surface area/volume ratio of the building (so build it taller or build 2x or 3x as many buildings).

3. A bunch of long, skinny buildings requires more land (and probably more $) to house the same number of students as one borg cube.

Additionally, much of the criticism fails to acknowledge the actual design of the building.

Yes, each bedroom does not have a real window, but bedrooms are grouped into suites of 8, with a study area, kitchen and bathrooms... and that common space does have real windows!. An additional common area on each floor, shared among 8 suites, spanning the width of the building, has a wall covered with real windows!.

I agree that the borg cube is ugly, but I'd like to see the proposed alternative. The alternative needs to house the same number of students on the same amount of land and cost roughly the same amount. I don't think you can do the first two without building something 35 stories tall (more than twice the height of Storke Tower). And then you'll get the predictable comments about the "Manhattanization" of SB.

> bedrooms are grouped into suites of 8, with a study area, kitchen and bathrooms... and that common space does have real windows!

https://images.app.goo.gl/9s77YAvZXuEwEYaM6

This is the floorplan I could find. Where are the windows on the suites of house 4?

> The alternative needs to house the same number of students on the same amount of land and cost roughly the same amount.

Why? Did god gave us the number of students this university must accept? Sometimes the correct answer is that the question is wrong.

> This is the floorplan I could find. Where are the windows on the suites of house 4?

I stand corrected! I was going by the floorplan on the original article, which apparently didn't show the full building. You'd think that someone trying to make the point that it's a bad design would show the parts of the design that are actually bad.

> Why? Did god gave us the number of students this university must accept? Sometimes the correct answer is that the question is wrong.

Sure, that's a fair point, but then the problem isn't the building or its patron, so the criticism is misplaced.

Well if that's the design I'd say just add 10 feet between the houses. Now every common space and 1/4 of the bedrooms can have windows.

This is a uniquely weird US PoV. Everywhere else in the world, university students as the adults they are, live in housing much like that of all other adults, maybe in self-organized groups. The whole problem starts with dorms.

Three of the 7 review "highlights" are positive and related directly to the design: "everyone gets their own bathroom", "spacious living area", and "best place to live in terms of value".

> Imagine how much praise it would receive if it had windows?

It would also be more expensive and have fewer rooms. In all likelihood, that would result in multiple people per room. All that makes the result unclear.

How? We can build rooms with Windows for less than 330 000$ per room. We don't even need to put multiple people per room at this price.

It's simple physics. If every bedroom has a window, the building needs to have a higher surface area to volume ratio.

The proposed building looks like a Borg Cube (maybe that's why architects don't like it?), but that's only possible because most bedrooms are not on exterior walls. Instead, each bedroom is part of a suite that opens to a common area that does have a real window!

If you take a look at the footprint of residential buildings, you'll notice that they are almost never square. In fact, they have a fairly high aspect ratio.

In the case of Santa Barbara, the major constraint is land. If you wanted to house the same number of students, you'd either need to make the building 2-3x taller or use 2-3x as much land. Otherwise the buildings would be so close that the real windows would get no natural light (but, hey, at least you'd have a real window).

Yes, it's not a problem to have a higher surface area to volume ratio. You can make a not so tall building with a budget of 330 000$ per room, by putting common area in the center.

The issue is not the aspect ratio. The issue is that Charlie is obsessed with having every room connected to a common space which is the one with natural light. It would be trivial to have a slightly higher aspect ratio, maybe one or two more floors, and have the common areas in the center.

> it's not a problem to have a higher surface area to volume ratio

Apparently the original article included only 1/8th of the building's floor plan. Another commenter linked me this floor plan: https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/02/architect-resigns-grotesqu...

As you can see, the surface area problem even worse!

Each bedroom is 8x10 feet, but the building is only 87 * 4 by 200 * 2 feet. That's 1496 linear feet of exterior wall. That's only enough for 187 exterior rooms per floor, while the design calls for approximately 512 (8 rooms per suite * 8 suites per house * 8 housed per floor).

> It would be trivial to have a slightly higher aspect ratio, maybe one or two more floors

You'd need to add not just "one or two" more floors, but increase the residential part of the building from 9 floors to 24!. Even if you made very narrow (6 foot) rooms, it would still require 18 floors.

> You can make a not so tall building with a budget of 330 000$ per room

And they're paying over $1 million per bathroom! I consider this a fairly disingenuous comment because the article is clear that the building includes space for other things like convertible classrooms and rec areas.

Those living there who don't like it really don't like it. They could be a minority, that rating could be accurate otherwise... but I don't necessarily trust internet crowd ratings.

https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2021/11/03/heres-what-its-like-...

I certainly trust it more than that article.

Why?

I'm going to trust actual people quoted over an anonymous out-of-five rating site as being accurate and representative.

That site has hundreds of people quoted and I don't trust the journalist to pick a representative sample, vs. focusing on the most negative or click-worthy takes.

Up to you. The article, though, also quotes a student who likes living there, and mentions the same 8.8 out of 10 rating that you mention. Perhaps that's just part of it's plan to appear balanced while actually misleading us.

Does anyone know if this dorm has the simulated window feature that the UCSB dorm has? No mention of it in the reviews that I can find so I'm guessing not. Either way, I wonder how far that goes to addressing the downside of no windows?

windowless is a piece of it. these are larger and have their own bathroom. this does not map well as as comparison.

and, for myself an essential differentiator, the University of Michigan's are for older grad students.

This seems better for younger students than older.

There is a BIG difference, the existing high rated Michigan apartments linked do have windows in the living rooms, just the bedrooms are windowless[1]. While the new project have completely windowless apartments.

[1]https://www.mlive.com/resizer/er_cS_IEhTFMCZrSWuLnRZtwMEc=/8...

The Michigan building is a lot smaller and each bedroom has a private bathroom.

I'm not sure how I would respond if I were considering living in a windowless room for a bit less than a year. I think I might not like the idea, but I probably wouldn't make the lack of a window the only consideration.