Alfred Twu Profile picture
Oct 29, 2021 β€’ 7 tweets β€’ 4 min read β€’ Read on X
Thread on the @ucsantabarbara cube dorm:
- no windows πŸ‘€
- next to airport and hazmat facility πŸ‘€ πŸ‘€
- more expensive to build than normal dorms πŸ‘€ πŸ‘€ πŸ‘€
@UofCalifornia needs to (and can) do better
1/
Pictures from CA Environmental Quality Act report at files.ceqanet.opr.ca.gov/271362-2/attac… giant floor plan divided in...aerial site photo showing s...a very large 11-story beige...
As the saying goes, the most important things in real estate are Location, Location, Location. The cube plans to put 1 out of every 6 UCSB students next to the County of Santa Barbara Community Hazardous Waste Collection Center. At least there's a fire station next door also. 2/ google aerial photo with Do...
Right to the north of the cube dorm site is the Santa Barbara Airport. It is used by a lot of small prop planes, which continue to use leaded fuel and are a major air pollution problem, #whatcouldgowrong? epa.gov/regulations-em… 3/ zoomed out map showing cube...
The floor plan, while terrible, is not even efficient. Less than half the building is bedroom (blue shaded area). Cube Dorm has 4,536 beds in a 1.68 million square foot building. That's 370 square feet per bed, about the same as a full size studio apartment. 4/ cube dorm with bedrooms sha...
Cube Dorm will cost $1.5 billion to build. Even with the donor providing $200 million, that's still much more per bed than a similar number of regular highrise dorms that UCLA is building. 5/ urbanize.city/la/post/westwo… UCSB cube dorm, 4,500 beds,...
One reason the cost might be so high for the Cube Dorm: the need to install air ducts and air conditioning in Santa Barbara, a place where the weather is room temperature all year. There's also a rooftop downtown with 3 gyms and a gastro pub 6/ roof plan with gastropub, f...
Members of the public are welcome to share concerns or views with the University of California Board of Regents by emailing regentsoffice@ucop.edu 🐦 7/

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More from @alfred_twu

Dec 15, 2022
Five shapes of apartment buildings, each with 60 homes. Top left, a wide block with doors off a long hallway, is the most common type built today in the US.

Top center is common in Europe. Today we'll also look at a few other styles.

Which do you prefer?
1/ 3D views of five types of a...
In the last few decades, as codes in the US have allowed large wood buildings, the hotel-style floorplan has become standard for 4-8 story apartments.

It's the most efficient plan that meets code requirements of 2 stairs. Downsides: most people only get windows on one side.
2/ a five story apartment buil...
In places where code allows a single stair, the layout often looks like this: a long building might actually be several connected buildings, each with its own stair and elevator.

Advantage: cross ventilation, two views, also can put bedrooms on quiet side.
3/ an 8 story perimeter block,...
Read 12 tweets
Dec 7, 2022
Thoughts on what AI means for artists: AI art often has a sci-fi / fantasy style to it as it's one of the last big industries for illustrators. In 1960s-70s, color photos took over most work depicting things that exist, but artists were still needed to draw things that didn't. 1/
The style of a lot of AI art - realism with high contrast and bold colors - is similar to that used in video, card, and board games, which often have sci-fi or fantasy settings. It's likely the AI was trained on images from websites such as DeviantArt or ArtStation. 2/
A physical game will have a couple hundred pieces of "card art" - standalone images to represent a character, object, event, or place. Video games have even more. This is likely one of the first things that AI images would replace. 3/
Read 7 tweets
Dec 7, 2022
Hello from #pinolemtg !
#VisitPinole 🍐 A meeting in Pinole city hall
Most of tonight's meeting is ceremonial but we do have some public comments, including one about the need to act now to improve pedestrian safety at a downtown crosswalk #pinolemtg 🐦
And it's official! @MaliaCohen swears in the new Mayor of #Pinole, @DevinMurphyDTM ! πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸπŸ¦ City council meeting at Pin...
Read 5 tweets
Dec 6, 2022
I don't think I've seen a city council meeting go this late before, 2:59 am might be some kind of record.

San Mateo has a five person council but there is one vacant seat, so they are stuck at 2-2 on both filling the vacancy and appointing a mayor (who could break the tie)
Like most cities where members of the city council take turns being the mayor, the process in San Mateo is supposed to be just a formality, until now
Read 4 tweets
Nov 28, 2022
The growing protests in China reminds me of the research that revolutions are most likely when the standard of living rises but then goes in reverse, causing anger due to unmet expectations.

China's last 20 years have got to be one of the most extreme versions of this.
1/
China's economy today is several times larger than it was in 2000, but the lifestyle changes are more than just about a number, the two decades saw an even bigger change in mobility: high speed trains, car ownership, international travel.

With lockdowns, mobility went to zero
2/
During the first couple years of the pandemic relatively few places were locked down in China, and at the same time, people in other parts of the world were also staying home.

2022 is different. People are out and about everywhere else, while China has had more lockdowns
3/
Read 6 tweets
Jul 6, 2022
My thoughts on the San Francisco fourplex debate.... Because SF lots are tiny and prices are so high, for a house in San Francisco to be worth more as a site for apartments than as a luxury house, it's got to be zoned for a lot more than 4 homes. More like 15-30 of them. 🧡🏠1/ a skyscraper next to a house
Houses in San Francisco sell for median price of around $2 million. Even the cheap ones are well over a million. In comparison, new apartment projects pay $100,000 to $150,000 per unit of zoned capacity for a site. (For example, 1.5 million for a site that allows 10 units) 2/
That means that someone who wants to build a fourplex might only offer $600,000 for a house, while someone who wants to use it as a house will be willing to pay at least double. 3/
Read 6 tweets

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