UC Campus Architects Unite in Opposition to Munger Hall

Eight former University of California campus architects from Berkeley to San Diego have banded together to express their “extreme concern and opposition” to UCSB’s Munger Hall proposal. In a November 17 letter to the college system’s president, Michael Drake, and its board of regents, the group says the massive dormitory project ― which would warehouse 4,500 undergraduates in small, windowless bedrooms ― could have severe psychological effects on its occupants. “We ask that you take a step back and embrace the values of a humane environment, one that fosters health, safety, and welfare, instead of one that may forever harm generations of young students,” they wrote. Simply put, the project “is a disaster in the making,” they said.

The architects took special exception with the proposal’s price tag ― estimated in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion ― and noted the per-bed cost would top $330,000, making it the most expensive residential project in UC history that would inevitably drive up UCSB housing prices. By contrast, they explained, UC Santa Barbara’s San Joaquin Villages student apartment complex built in 2017 cost just $166,000 per bed. The group acknowledged UCSB’s chronic housing shortage, “but this social petri dish, so foreign to the character of the Santa Barbara campus, is not the answer,” they said. And the effects wouldn’t be limited to UCSB, they predicted. “A failed investment of this size is bound to ripple throughout the University system.”

Moreover, the architects continued, the 1.68-million-square-foot building’s lighting and ventilation systems would require a huge amount of energy to operate and would be “in direct conflict with the UC system’s Carbon Neutrality goal.” Finally, they said, “the current COVID-19 pandemic calls into question the wisdom of residential buildings relying entirely on mechanical ventilation.”