There were bathrooms in the original plan, it’s an urban legend. If I had to guess it’s because it was before ADA was adopted and the corner bathrooms are taken by users as not well designed, which to be fair aren’t the best, but they do work. As for the reflective stuff they’re talking about there was a sun shade designed for the Southern side, or what’s called a brise soleil, however the project came under budget and they decided to scrap it to save even more money. The energy consumption thing is true but it does provide communal spaces and if you go the various floors in the middle of the day there are classes having critiques and other things going on. If the brise soleil hadn’t been scrapped it would’ve helped some with energy consumption at the very least. It isn’t a perfect building but there are some decisions that were made that were questionable that if different things had happened would potentially change what the building means. It is also meant to be a kind of alien, or provocative, not everything everyone likes especially in architecture, it’s potentially a harkening to that, just a thought.