Sad that economical living spaces are considered so radical on HN.
I lived in a small dorm with a crappy roommate (actual roommate, not flatmate). So I didn't spend any unnecessary time in my room outside of sleeping. I hung out at the library, cafeteria, etc and went to random talks/activities on campus (there are a lot of them on a big campus).
No windows? Sunlight alarms exist. They're great. Modern AC is also great.
I would definitely trade the privacy and security of private quarters for a tiny window that would probably be facing another dorm building.
University campuses are not prisons or suburbs. You can move freely and there are fantastic amenities in walking/shuttle distance. Affordably living in the thick of it, with private quarters, is an incredible luxury for most students.
The point is not that extremely small living spaces, which you flatteringly describe as “economical”, are intrinsically bad. The issue here is the imbalance of power.
I can say with near certainty that very few of the students who would be living in this space would opt for such a layout (extremely small rooms, no windows). Obviously, the students have absolutely no say in the matter, and neither does the university staff who is supposed to take care of the students' well-being.
Rather, the power dynamic here is completely unilateral. Every detail of the space 4500 people will be living in will be prescribed and commanded by one guy, based on no other credentials than the fact that he's paying for it.
This is the issue: the imbalance of power, and the unilateral ability of an investor and “hobby architect” to make generations of students live in conditions they would not themselves choose. The fact that people on HN seem to be against this building only serves as evidence that most people would not choose to live in it.
What an incredibly dramatic comment. Are you being serious right now? HN is not remotely representative of the general population, much less undergraduate student population.
And most students aren't going to let their anti-authoritarian angst/daddy issues get in the way of an easy commute and good night's sleep.
Authority doesn't have to be bad, as long as it's justified, or at the very least as long as the authority exists to meet the needs of those under authority.
If you design a student dorm for example, the best design will take into account what is best for the students, according to the students. Okay, we can introduce authority into it, and assign some staff to decide what would be best for them. But either way, the "input" to this process would be the needs of the students.
I don't think it should be controversial to say that constructing the dorm based on plans from a rich hobby-architect donor is not in the best interest of the students, and that it is impossible to consider this justified or beneficial authority towards the students. The argument of "some discomfort will do them good" does not convince me, unfortunately.
I find it difficult to see this donor's story as anything other than self-congratulatory megalomania, but if you see it differently, I honestly hope you're right!
And I'm guessing pretty much any new dorm built today will have central air in any case.
My initial reaction was pretty negative and not sure how I'd feel about the overall size and the lack of windows in rooms. On the other hand, in a lot of designs even if you have a window it's often facing a wall.
However, I actually favor optimizing for the common space. I liked that kind of design. And the rooms being discussed here don't seem much if any smaller than the smaller singles I remember.
The rooms seem a little bit smaller than usual singles, but I'd gladly take the size downgrade if it meant I didn't need to share a room with 1-3 other people.
I lived in a small dorm with a crappy roommate (actual roommate, not flatmate). So I didn't spend any unnecessary time in my room outside of sleeping. I hung out at the library, cafeteria, etc and went to random talks/activities on campus (there are a lot of them on a big campus).
No windows? Sunlight alarms exist. They're great. Modern AC is also great.
I would definitely trade the privacy and security of private quarters for a tiny window that would probably be facing another dorm building.
University campuses are not prisons or suburbs. You can move freely and there are fantastic amenities in walking/shuttle distance. Affordably living in the thick of it, with private quarters, is an incredible luxury for most students.