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Comment by seabird | Hacker News Reader

As much as it would be incredibly funny for Munger to be wrong after talking so much shit, I really don't think that he is. There's a lot of whining about "muh windows" and "you live in a cell". That's cool, but there's plenty of windows available to you when you leave your room, and a lot of people would rather have a small room without a window that's properly private than a marginally bigger one that you share with an asshole roommate.

It's not perfect, but it's enough for this job, and I would take it in a heartbeat over a lot of the options that were available at the university I went to.

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> a lot of people would rather have a small room without a window that's properly private than a marginally bigger one that you share with an asshole roommate.

Not an American, so maybe I missed some cultural thing here - but what does one have to do with the other? Single-occupancy bedrooms with windows seem to be the standard in many European countries at least.

Real estate is extremely pricey and the number one priority for a university in the US is making money. We have a lot of universities here with 50k, 60k, even 70k students enrolled, so you're either packing people in close and forgoing things like windows for a lot of residents, or building a lot of sprawling housing. One is obviously much more affordable for a college student in the US.

This is Bonn University's largest dorm:

https://www.studierendenwerk-bonn.de/wohnen/unsere-wohnheime...

575 single-occupancy rooms with individual bathroom, kitchen and window(!) in two buildings with a total footprint of ~9600m². Seems pretty packed to me.

"Basement dweller" culture is overrepresented on the internet. "I don't care about windows", "I shower once a week" and "I’ve never seen my friends in person" are sentiments I hear often on imageboards and not in real life.

Not wanting to sleep in the same room with somebody who has zero respect for you doesn't mean that you shower once a week and don't have any actual friends. I know a lot of people whose roommates resulted in constant headache, lost sleep, etc. and moved somewhere where they could have a room to themselves as soon as they could. I even know a couple people whose university-assigned roommates developed raging drug addictions, and they would have to live and sleep in the same room with these people.

If I'm a basement dweller because I want to have a place (even a very small one) where I have some semblance of privacy, then I guess it is what it is.

Lots of university dorms in the US are setup so that two people share the same bedroom.

Did you ever lived or worked in a windowless room (or a room whose window doesn't directly take sunlight or see anything besides a wall) for any amount of time?

Yep, you're describing the offices and schools I've worked and studied in for the last 5 or 6 years. 8-16 hours a day in rooms without sunlight. It rarely crosses my mind. I can say that I would in a heartbeat, no questions asked, choose a single-person room with no windows that I only sleep and study in, over a shared room where I have minimal privacy and I run the risk of having my sleep schedule be completely trashed by an inconsiderate roommate.

This design is asking you to walk out of your room if you want sunlight. It's not ideal. Some students would rather not. They're doing sardine-packing here as a matter of necessity and there's going to be some tradeoffs, but frankly this is a pretty minor one.

> They're doing sardine-packing here as a matter of necessity and there's going to be some tradeoffs, but frankly this is a pretty minor one.

I honestly don't understand this. It's not like this is a new problem. There are plenty of ways to pack a building and still give each room a window - a famous example being the Pentagon building. The view way not be particularly nice, but at least it would give you fresh air and a sense of time and space.

He said has has copied architecture patterns from cruise ships. Of course you can't design a ship with courtyards, so windowless cabins sort of make sense there. But he is not building a cruise ship.

Cruise ship with a courtyard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_the_Seas

Almost 3000 rooms, but easily could have been more as all the cabins are bigger than in Munger Hall. Total pricetag is about the same at $1.4B. Does UCSB have a pier? Hmm...

Ha, wouldn't have thought - thanks for the info.

I found this: https://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/articles.cfm?ID=668&stay=1&po...

The idea for this dorm is that the students wouldn’t do that. They would go to their bunk to sleep and dress and have sex, and spend all the rest of their time in huge, luxuriously-windowed common spaces.

Except that the luxuriously-windowed common spaces (two for the 64 occupants of one floor) are a fair bit away from the rooms. The common kitchens that connect each 8-room group don't have windows either.

I have worked in a windowless room from the beginning of COVID. I would prefer this to having a roommate. Currently I could commute into the office and work in our big window'd office with others, but regardless of COVID (and even assuming a pre-COVID lively office), I'd still work at home a lot. I usually go in one day a week for collaboration or hardware stuff that needs me there.

In my best working arrangements, we all had our own offices, but would often collaborate and invite people into pair-program (and spacious with big windows). I've worked both in single offices, shared workspaces, and cubicle farms. I would sacrifice a lot for privacy and solitude.

Wrong or right, this is what we get not taxing rich - they get to decide what is good for us and our children.

this 1000%, let me finish the sentence for you, they get to decide what is good for us and our children, while sending their own children to schools that have better accomodations, or they just pay for their kids' accomodations (buying houses, condos, etc and flipping them after their kids are done living there) after they're no longer required to stay on campus. Some high end US univ's require at least 1yr on campus residency, so it's back to the penthouse loft after that.

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