Charlie Munger defends his design for a dorm building in California

According to the Santa Barbara Independent, blueprints for “Munger Hall” call for an 11-story building that can house 4,500 students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with 94% of single-occupancy rooms lacking windows.

According to the Independent, the proposal over concerns about a lack of natural light led architect Dennis McFadden to resign from the school’s design review committee recently.

“Everybody loves light and everyone loves natural light. But it’s a game of tradeoffs,” Munger said in an interview. “If you build a big square building, everyone in the building has everything easily. If you maximize the light, you get fewer people in the building.”

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Munger, the K Vice Chairman and Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, has worked in architecture for a long time and is known for some odd design ideas.

His donations to universities and other schools often come with the gripe that he will have a hand in how the buildings look. In 2019, he told the Wall Street Journal that “architects don’t love me.”

Munger donated $200 million to UCSB to be used in dormitories for undergraduates. According to the report of ‘The Independent’, this donation has been given with the condition that their blueprint is followed properly.

In his resignation letter, McFadden stated that the dorm’s design discounts the importance of natural light to mental and physical well-being, according to The Independent. Critics on Twitter also criticized Munger’s proposal.

Munger has argued that the smaller living quarters would encourage students to congregate in common spaces together and that the design would help reduce costs for a project, which is estimated to cost about $1.5 billion in total.

He said the building’s design was an “improved” version of what he funded at the University of Michigan, where he donated $100 million to support housing for graduate students.

“I was there only last month. We picked the students at random and they are all crazy about it,” Munger said. “We are replicating the existing building which is a huge success and we have improved it.”