Design flaw

Add billions and egomania and what do you get? Egomaniacal billionaire paying part of the cost for a student dormitory in which most of the rooms have no windows.

The 11-story, 159-foot-tall Munger Hall dormitory was designed by 97-year-old billionaire Charles Munger, who donated $200 million toward the approximately $1.4 billion project under the condition that his designs would be followed exactly.

He’s not an architect. He’s not a designer.

Cramming thousands of students into a residence hall where only 6% of the rooms have windows to some seems like a social experiment, but a similar concept has been executed at the University of Michigan with the Munger Graduate Residences.

Munger Graduate Residences opened in 2015 at the University of Michigan, housing up to 630 graduate students in an eight-story 380,000-square-foot building. Munger, a Berkshire Hathaway vice chair who donated $110 million towards the $155 million project, wanted to bring a “transdisciplinary” living experience to graduate students.

A transdisciplinary windowless experience.

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