College students in Austin, Texas, have been living in windowless rooms for years — that's why the town finally decided to ban them

In recent years, the town of Austin, Texas, has approved construction Thousands of windowless rooms in latest housing next to the University of Texas at Austin.

Most of those spaces are rented to UT students, leading to a Deterioration of their well-being.

The Austin City Council will finally make a choice in April 2024 voted to ban the development of windowless bedrooms.

As a Professor at UT's School of ArchitectureI consider this ban to be a late but welcome development. For 25 years, I even have given my students an project called “My Window,” where I ask them to attract a piece of the window of their bedroom. In 2021, some students told me they didn't have a window of their room.

I used to be shocked because as a practicing architect I had at all times assumed that windowless bedrooms were illegal. Some students began sharing photos of their rooms with me and recounting what dozens of scholars have described as their horrific experiences there.

Negative effects on mental health

A standard criticism is “disorganized circadian cycles” and the event of “depression and fatigue.” They attempt to avoid their rooms as much as possible. One student told me about “unbearable loneliness and claustrophobia caused by the four solid walls.” Another complained about waking up.with fear every morning.”

When I learned that windowless bedrooms were being in-built Austin, I started advocating for his or her ban. I asked the town council to take motion letters And in editorials. I read up on the subject and shared my views with architects, professors and students at various locations.

Students also mobilized. In spring 2023, they marched a survey to match students' experiences of living in rooms with and without windows. Students who lived in rooms without windows performed worse in all categories well-known scale that measures well-being.

In September 2023 [letter to Austin’s City Council]762 students called for a ban on windowless rooms. “Our city’s negligence in defending its citizens is being used as a weapon by developers to maximize profits,” they wrote. They also identified that windowless rooms are illegal in cities like New York City and Madrid.

Not legal elsewhere

In fact, windowless bedrooms are illegal in New York City – as in major cities all over the world. A percentage of the room's floor area, laid out in each city's constructing code, determines the minimum window size. In New York City, every bedroom is required to have a window area no less than 10% the scale of the ground area of ​​the room; in Madrid 12%; and in Mexico City 15%.

In Austin, the number was 0% until the recent ban.

Why? There's a straightforward reason for this: Austin, like most cities within the US, follows the International Building Code, and that code has a glaring gap. It is lighting area states: “Every space intended for human occupancy shall be provided with natural light via exterior glazed openings in accordance with Section 1204.2 or with artificial light in accordance with Section 1204.3.”

The code then goes into great detail concerning the specific requirements for every situation. But the word “or” leaves the door open for some developers to interpret the code to make natural light optional.

To protect themselves from these developers, cities like Chicago and Washington, DC, have closed the loophole by simply replacing “or” with “and” of their adopted codes. Austin is finally doing just that. The recently approved The code revision bans windowless Bedroom when it comes into force on May 20, 2024.

Profit comes first

Unfortunately, developers have already taken advantage of the loophole and built hundreds of windowless bedrooms that can soon now not be legal to construct, but will still be legally allowed to rent out.

Windowless rooms haven’t led to lower rents for college students in Austin. Additionally, during my two-year campaign to ban windowless spaces, no developer spoke in favor of it before the Austin City Council.

They built them quietly while they might, because student dormitories are what they’re very profitableand much more so when windowless rooms are allowed.

How come? This is because a bulky constructing with interior spaces distant from the façade can occupy more interior space with a smaller proportion of exterior partitions, that are costlier to construct than interior partitions.

A vulnerable population

Namratha Thrikutam, a UT architecture student, sums up the plight of her fellow students living in windowless spaces: “Students are a population that developers know they can exploit.”

“We don't have that much money. We don't have that much reputation in the world. We don’t have that much experience with the things we’ve been through, so it’s very easy to take advantage of us,” she says said the Daily Texanthe official newspaper of UT Austin.

Attracted by the proximity to campus, students in windowless rooms try to come back to terms with it with lush room decoration, circadian LED lighting, mental therapy or medication.

For example a Exchange student from Spain who had unknowingly rented a windowless room contacted me and asked for help. She told me that since she was illegal in her hometown of Barcelona, ​​it never occurred to her that the room she rented before arriving in Austin is perhaps windowless.

She described her anxiety and deteriorating mental health after just just a few days in her unit. When I wrote to their property manager on their behalf and asked for a room with a window, they replied: “We do not promise windows in any of our rooms. Like other buildings in the Austin area, no windows are promised.” Shockingly, the leases also make no mention of no windows.

Similar to immigrants in New York City Tenement houses within the 1850s, UT students were left to fend for themselves. Austin has failed them by approving the development of hundreds of windowless housing units.

UT, a top public universityhas let her down Not enough university accommodation is provided and by remaining silent in the course of the campaign to ban windowless rooms. The university's position is predicated on the indisputable fact that West Campus “falls under the jurisdiction of the City of Austin,” in line with a press release obtained by The Conversation.

My viewpoint is: Yes, but these are your students asking for help.

And architects have failed students by voluntarily designing windowless rooms. The architects ignored one in every of them Core Guidelines from the American Institute of Architects: “to consider the physical, mental and emotional impact of a building on its occupants.”

Changes sought

The experiences of scholars living in windowless rooms in Austin should function a cautionary tale to authorities who control constructing codes. If windowless rooms are already illegal in your city, stick to it. If they don't, ban them as soon as possible. If not, students and other vulnerable populations reminiscent of immigrants, seniors and low-income people would at all times be a possible goal for developers.

In the meantime, and to guard these populations, I’m working with other concerned architects across the U.S. to shut the gap on the source by amending the International Building Code directly, reasonably than expecting every city to shut it through an area change to its codes . like Austin just did.

It's a slow and bureaucratic process, but ultimately the message must be clear: natural light in buildings must be a human right, not a developer's alternative.