Shortening

Tuesday, November 01, 2022

The giant dorm planned for UC-Santa Barbara has been somewhat decapitated, ostensibly to avoid airplanes. (No, this is not a joke.) From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

A massive, largely windowless dormitory complex, dubbed “Dormzilla” by its critics, won’t loom quite as tall or arise as early as planned over the skyline of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Bowing to pressure from the community and concerns about air traffic from a nearby airport, the university has agreed to cut two floors off the design. Instead of housing just over 4,500 students on 11 stories, Munger Hall will accommodate 3,500 students on nine.

“The decision to move from 11 floors to nine floors allows us to both meet the campus’s housing goal for our current student enrollment and to respond to input from our community about size and density,” a campus spokeswoman, Kiki Reyes, wrote in an email. It will also help avoid “potential issues related to airport traffic” from Santa Barbara Airport.

Because of the remaining approvals the project needs, Munger Hall is unlikely to open before late 2026, instead of 2025, as originally planned.

Charlie Munger, the 98-year-old benefactor who’s largely responsible for the design of Munger Hall, had made it clear, in an interview last year with The Chronicle, that if the university insisted on changes, he would take back the $200 million he’d pledged toward the building. But, interviewed last week, he said that while “of course” the university had consulted with him, he had no objection to removing a couple of floors if it would alleviate flight-safety concerns...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/dormzilla-gets-a-little-less-monstrous and UCOP Daily News Clips.

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https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/shortening.mp3