What’s Happening: College dorms without windows? In the hands of stingy developers, student housing is starting to look like antiseptic “jails masquerading as dormitories” ill-suited for the mental health needs of students—and basic standards of humanity.

The Download: For more than 20 years, Juan Miró has assigned his students at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture a quick exercise: hand-draw a detailed section of the window in their bedroom. The task seemed simple enough until Miró learned some of his students’ bedrooms lacked windows altogether. “I couldn’t believe it when they first told me,” he wrote in ArchDaily earlier this year, “thinking perhaps shady landlords are illegally renting them large closets as bedrooms.” He was horrified to learn his students actually stay in windowless rooms in new dorms built on West Campus—a transformation touted by the university as a successful example of zoning for higher density in residential areas.

Successful for lab rats, maybe. When Miró asked fellow architects if they knew about UTA’s window situation, most responded with incredulity. Bedroom windows traditionally provide emergency escape and a rescue opening, but the International Building Code makes exceptions when buildings are fully sprinklered, only requiring they comply with emergency egress requirements expected in a traditional office building. Miró cites a report from the Prison Association of New York: “There is no excuse in these days for building a prison without windows in the cells into which light is admitted only through the doors,” it reads. Year of publication? 1903.

Light’s relationship with mental health is well-documented. Natural light profoundly influences mood and triggers serotonin release, with reduced sunlight exposure linked to anxiety-related disorders. One study found hospital patients with depression who stay in brighter rooms are admitted 30 days fewer on average than patients in darker rooms. Students cramming in windowless rooms in front of laptop screens are more likely to suffer from increased eyestrain, headaches, and drowsiness. With a surging mental health crisis afflicting U.S. colleges, building dorms with ample natural light seems like a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, windowless dorms are becoming more common. Perhaps the most infamous example surfaced this past year at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which unanimously approved the construction of a mega-dorm designed to house more than 4,500 students. Hailed by administrators as a much-needed solution to the university’s dire housing shortage, the proposal sparked widespread backlash when it was revealed that 94 percent of the 11-story building’s bedrooms lack windows. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger decried it as a “grotesque, sick joke—a jail masquerading as a dormitory.”

The hulking building, dubbed Dormzilla by the internet, was conceived by 98-year-old billionaire investor and amateur architect Charles Munger, who donated $200 million toward the project with one condition: build it precisely to his blueprints. Munger, who developed a similar dorm at the University of Michigan, maintains the small living quarters will coax students out of their rooms and into common areas where organic interactions occur. Each room comes equipped with a “screen” window—not unlike those found on Disney Cruises—that allow students to simulate whatever level of natural light they desire. “It’s all about the happiness of the students,” he told Architectural Record. “We want to keep the suicide rate low.”

Pretty much everyone except Munger and UCSB administrators spurned Dormzilla, especially after architect Dennis McFadden, who long served as a consultant on the university’s design review committee, resigned and likened it to a “social and psychological experiment.” Once it went viral, he received an outpouring of support from his contemporaries. “Moshe Sadie emailed me with comments about the horrors of the project and asked what he could do to help,” he told Record. The university seems bullish on its construction, and Munger has deflected criticism of the project as people simply put off by his extreme wealth. Whether the mega-dorm actually comes to light remains to be seen.

In Their Own Words: “Building windowless rooms is cheap, so, wherever it’s legal, developers justify them,” Miró wrote in the Austin American-Statesman. “This must stop. Windows provide mental health, natural light, ventilation, and visual connections with the outside. It should be illegal for developers and landlords to advertise or lease windowless spaces as bedrooms.”

Surface Says: As long as we’re experimenting with windowless living quarters, maybe Charlie Munger’s $11 million oceanfront mansion in Montecito—located in a gated community monikered “Mungerville”—should be stripped of its indoor views to show solidarity with the students at nearby UCSB. We think it would encourage Munger to leave the house and engage with the neighbors… and possibly reconnect with common sense.

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Besides championing vegan materials and ethical manufacturing in fashion, Stella McCartney is known for her namesake house’s artist crossovers. The British label recently presented its Autumn/Winter 2022 collection on the upper floor of Paris’s Centre Pompidou, which was showcasing one of Europe’s most comprehensive exhibitions on Frank Stella. His rebellious minimalist abstractions across painting, printmaking, and sculpture inspired the collection, which sees some of the American artist’s most recognizable works—Spectralia (1994), V Series (1968), and Swan Engraving (1982) among them—printed faithfully onto the garments or used as a jumping-off point for McCartney to gently riff on their patterns and shapes.

The Stella-meets-Stella affair unfolds across the label’s signature faux-fur coats, viscose dresses, and an exclusive vegan Frayme bag, which employ sustainable materials like grape leather, recycled nylon, and regenerative wool. McCartney entrusted Stella with final approval on the collection—a welcome throwback given how his mother initially studied painting and fashion design. “When she dressed up,” he recalls, “she was glamorous.”

On Oct. 11, MatchesFashion kicked off Frieze week—increasingly regarded as the fifth fashion week—with a birthday party for Gagosian curator and director Antwaun Sargent. Beats by DJ Miles Freedom set the vibe for the evening’s festivities, which took place at MatchesFashion’s Mayfair townhouse at 5 Carlos Place in London. Guests then serenaded Sargent with a chorus of “Happy Birthday.”

When was it? Oct. 11

Where was it? MatchesFashion townhouse, Mayfair

Who was there? Tyler Mitchell, Jeremy O. Harris, Ashley James, Hannah Traore, and more.

Josie Ho is a renaissance woman. Actress, producer, singer—the prolific Hong Kong-based talent, and daughter of Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho, has her hands in many pots. Since launching her career in 1994, Ho has appeared in more than 30 films and TV shows—winning awards for roles in the slasher-horror Dream Home and erotic drama In the Room—and worked with leading directors ranging from Steven Soderbergh and Takeshi Mike to Johnny To.

In 2009, she launched 852 Films with her husband, Conroy Chan, and producer Andrew Ooi. The studio is known for its eclectic eye, notably picking up How To Talk To Girls At Parties, starring Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman, at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. In the new 852 Films documentary Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice, Ho and her rock band, Josie and The Uni Boys, travel to Iceland in search of solace and cultural enrichment. Surface spoke to the multi-hyphenate about the documentary, training under a clown master, and her hat collection.

One launch in the world of rare spirits is catching our attention. Guided by the steady hand of maestra ronera (master of rum) Jassil Villanueva Quintana, Brugal’s new special-edition vintage combines its single-cask reserves and signature double-aging technique for the first time in the brand’s 134-year history. Named Andrés Brugal, the blend is an homage to the flavors of the Dominican Republic: roasted coffee beans, freshly harvested Cacao, and subtle fragrance notes of dulce de leche and rum cake.

Bottled in hand-blown crystal decanters, each of the 460 bottles in the collection is packaged in a custom display cabinet inspired by the retro traveling cases of yore. Fabricated from American oak, the mini-trunk unfolds into a pedestal of sorts with interior mirrors reflecting the liquid’s amber glow. The surfaces are etched with a world map, a symbolic reference to the peripatetic Brugal founder’s travels from Spain to the Caribbean over a century ago.

Each frame in the Blake Kuwahara Eyewear collection has a unique inner silhouette encased in an unexpectedly fresh outer shape. Through a laborious, handmade process, the seamless fusion of two separate frames and the juxtaposition of contrasting form and color create a design tension that’s modern yet familiar.

Surface Says: It’s evident in his artful frames that Blake Kuwahara approaches creating eyewear as a meticulous discipline of design. His brand’s handmade styles evade that status quo with their experimental and nuanced identity.

Mr. Doodle covers his entire 12-room house in doodles, inside and out.

Issey Miyake’s new gridded bag can adjust in size to suit different outfits.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, divers can leap from a picturesque high bridge.

Is popcorn becoming the latest low-effort cocktail garnish of the moment?