MIT Expansion Plans | MIT/Kendall Square | Cambridge

C'mon, ablarc -- The Birds doesn't suck. It's an artful meditation on the idea of "death from above" -- a common fear during the Cold War.

Don't get me started on the Stata Center...
 
this is a cool project i wuld want to see

k
 
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First, the Sloan school expansion near Kendall Square. No sign of a crane.

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The expansion of the Media Lab. Looking at the steel, and they look to be topped out or nearly so, they must be expecting some heavy floor loadings.

Rendering:

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I was just wandering through the website of Pei Partnership Architects (IM Pei's sons) and noticed this little project for the 'Opera of the Future Arts + Media Technologies Building'. Does anyone know if this is actually getting built?
 
I work in Kendall Square and it is so freaking boring. It's been said before in this thread and I?m sure most of you already realize it. There is literally nothing here and no street life at all. It?s basically an urban office park adjacent to a major university and bio-tech labs with a Starbucks and a Cosi. It seriously needs something interesting, intriguing, a destination, something to make me forget about work for the hour that I have off for lunch.

Lately it?s been so bad that I?ve been taking the T over to Charles and going to Charles Street/the park for my lunch hour. Adding the residences is a good first step, but unfortunately is such a bland, boring area, I don?t think I would want to live here.
 
unterbau said:
I was just wandering through the website of Pei Partnership Architects (IM Pei's sons) and noticed this little project for the 'Opera of the Future Arts + Media Technologies Building'. Does anyone know if this is actually getting built?
Click to expand...

Perhaps it will be listed as a planned project in the next Town and Gown Report. From the description, the proposal is to rehab the original Media Lab, and install what looks to be a Cambridge version of the Louvre pyramid. If the project can be done for $20-25 million, MIT may splurge out of its capital budget. If more, it may await a generous benefactor. I think the timing would be to use the new addition to shelter much of the existing Media Lab while the original building is rehabbed, which would put it in the 2010-2011 timeframe.

Looking to the SW. New addition on the left. Existing is center right.

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stellarfun said:
From the description, the proposal is to rehab the original Media Lab, and install what looks to be a Cambridge version of the Louvre pyramid.
Click to expand...

Pei's first design for the JFK Library, which was initially supposed to be built in Cambridge, featured a pyramid about 20 years before his Louvre project.

OriginaldesignforCambridgeJFKLibrar.jpg
 
First Pei, then Piano.

Cambridge NIMBYS: hard at work protecting you from good architecture!
 
Wait till you see the multi hundred M$ Koch (as in multi B$ forturne) Integrated Cancer Center at the Vasser / Main St. Corner of the Campus -- ready to start constructing this summer?


Westy
 
whighlander said:
Wait till you see the multi hundred M$ Koch (as in multi B$ forturne) Integrated Cancer Center at the Vasser / Main St. Corner of the Campus -- ready to start constructing this summer?


Westy
Click to expand...

Westy, construction of the Koch is well underway. It has its own thread, with photos.
 
Stellar -- Sorry -- I've been away in Europe (Budapest, Oxford, Gdansk) --- I'm just catching up with posts on ArchBos (

last week I had to drive some through Boston / Cambridge -- saw quite a few new cranes -- I'm finally getting ready to do some serious new architectural / construction viewing on my feet in Boston / Cambridge

Westy
 
Albany Street graduate housing:

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Vassar Street improvements, down by the athletics area:

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Media Lab:

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Sloan School of Management:

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That Albany St. graduate housing isn't looking too hot. It falls far short of Rawn's NEU stuff, IMO.
 
That building on the right in the 2nd to last picture strikes me as being designed to have a tower added some day. Does anyone know? I looks odd just like the Hearst Building in Manhattan which was suppose built to have a tower added and had got one a few years ago.
 
Sloan School of Management:

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and the Media Lab addition:

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KZ, thank you for all your pics.

Funny (or curious) aside: the Pru keeps popping up in your various pics around town, and I keep saying to my self every time "hey, that doesn't look bad." How did I come to like the Pru? But it's true, I've come to be fond of it. Crazy, huh?

One of the reasons I like our skyline so much: it's defineable -- it's not just a filled-in wall of nameless structures like too many other (nameless) cities.
 
It's a clear landmark. Try finding one in downtown that you can spot miles away from any vantage point. All you see is this mass of buildings and you don't know where anything is. You see the Pru or the John Hancock you know where those are and where you are in relation to them. Ugly, perhaps, but more useful than a beautiful tower obscured by others.
 
I am actually very fond of the Pru. It certainly isn't pretty, but it is one of those buildings that not only defines the area where it resides, but also the city itself. You see a picture of the Pru and/or the John Hancock, and you know you're looking at Boston. Call it a certain type of character, but I have always really enjoyed the Pru.
 
kz1000ps said:
Vassar Street improvements, down by the athletics area:

img3461iu3.jpg
Click to expand...
Hope one of those improvements is getting those power lines underground.

Btw, MIT has got to be one of the ugliest campuses in the world. (Just saying.)

I know, I know; there are reasons.

Everything has a reason.
 
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