Worst? There are multiple axes and this clearly won’t be bad on all of them: - proximity to campus - private bedroom - land used / density - windows - furnishing - common areas - price - etc Worst would be an expensive windowless gymnasium with 200 people sleeping on cots in the same room 10 miles from campus or anything else.

Why can’t we try different combinations of that and let people self-optimize? One of the big trade-offs here is that putting every room on the exterior means making a long narrow building, which means “dead” space between builds (less density) and more exterior walls (construction cost). Light wells could maybe give you “windows” in that you could have some real sunlight, but they have zero view, privacy concerns, aren’t exits, and are much dimmer than true exterior windows. Courtyards have to be big enough to not be glorified lightwells, and they basically have the same problem as narrow buildings. We could try to build up for more density, but that comes with several more axes of trade-offs.

If everyone is saying no other building does this, maybe we should stop relying on emotion and get some actual data. It’s definitely possible that a sun-lamp window (and good ventilation, which he mentions) are fine for people. UCSB should just get a clause saying he’ll pay to tear it down after 10 years if psych studies of residents are damning, and then we have a billionaire really betting on his vision and funding an honest attempt at proving a viable alternative.