Images: MIT Media Lab's expansion
site of future lab building
This model shows what the south side of the building, whose upper floors will overlook the Charles River, will look like.
expanding from Weisner building
In addition to various Media Lab groups, the two buildings together will house the List Visual Arts Center, the School of Architecture and Planning's Design Lab and Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Deptartment of Architecture's Visual Arts Program and the Comparative Media Studies program. It will also hold the Okawa Center for Future Children, a part of the Media Lab that concentrates on education for children in developing nations. The Okawa Center was established in 1998 with a $27 million donation from Isao Okawa, the late chairman of SEGA Enterprises and the software company CSK.
nice view
The Media Lab expansion building will occupy the corner of Ames and Amherst streets, which is about one block from bank of the Charles River. Since the building across the street from it is only a few stories tall, the upper floors of the new Media Lab building will offer a direct view of the river and the Boston skyline.
Stata Center
The Media Lab is only two blocks from a famous MIT landmark, the aesthetically controversial Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences, which was designed by Frank O. Gehry.
space squeeze
Lab space is currently at a premium for MIT Media Lab professors and researchers, and the university has had to remove closets to make room for its growing research teams. The new building will include seven labs of about 5,000 to 8,000 square feet each.
atrium
"Don't worry, though, these will have a lot of light," said Kahn.
The labs will be staggered off a multilevel courtyard-like atrium spanning the third and fourth floors, as shown here.
lower atrium
The lower atrium, adjacent to exhibition spaces and closest to the street, will occupy the first four floors of the building and may be used for things like the testing of robots whose performance would be measured by their interaction with people entering the building. The second floor of the building will be used for offices.
outside view of lower & upper atrium
Here is an outside view of both the lower and upper atrium, as envisioned by Maki.
sixth floor
The sixth floor of the expansion building will have a 100-seat theater, a dining room, 3,500 square feet of multipurpose space, a conference room with floor-to-ceiling glass and an outdoor terrace, and quite a nice view of the Charles River and the Boston skyline.
event space
The MIT Media Lab expansion also includes event space, shown here, and catering facilities.
WhoWhatWhenAir tower
The WhoWhatWhenAir team labored through the spring to turn their design into reality, documenting their progress along the way. One team member told the publication LiveScience, "It's not a subtle thing at all." The tower has since been dismantled.