Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Media Lab Complex, Building E14

This complex is a showplace for new concepts in design, communication, and collaborative research, encouraging greater connectivity at MIT and infusing the work of the Media Lab with fresh energy.

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Media Lab Complex interior photo

Media Lab Complex, Building E14

75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA

Status: Complete

Themes: Innovation and collaboration
Enhancement of life and learning

Completion: 2009

This complex is a showplace for new concepts in design, communication, and collaborative research, encouraging greater connectivity at MIT and infusing the work of the Media Lab with fresh energy.

Overview

Media Lab Complex interior photo
Media Lab Complex interior photo
Media Lab Complex exterior photo

Status

Complete

Completion Date

2009

Themes and priorities

Innovation and collaboration
Enhancement of life and learning

The challenge in expanding MIT's world-renowned Wiesner Building, home of the MIT Media Lab, was to increase its size without altering its dynamics. A team headed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki and executive architects Leers Weinzapfel Associates designed an ingenious connecting structure that supports ongoing research and maximizes interaction and collaboration. The new building – six floors with approximately 163,000 square feet of laboratory, office, and meeting space – links to Wiesner, which was designed by I.M. Pei and Partners in 1985.

Both functionally advanced and architecturally distinguished, the complex is an ideal home for technological innovation, design, and the arts at MIT. Inside the new structure’s airy glass and metal framework, nine flexible laboratories are organized around a soaring central atrium. Clustering rows of offices around the labs encourage creative interaction, and transparent partitions offer extended sightlines through the building in every direction, allowing multiple activities to be seen from any vantage point. The building also contains top-floor event and display spaces, lecture and conference rooms, and a cafe – all overlooking the Charles River and the Boston skyline.

The completed Media Lab complex houses a unique, cross-disciplinary intellectual community that includes the Office of the Arts, the Council for the Arts, the List Visual Arts Center, the SA+P's Design Lab and Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Department of Architecture's Visual Arts Program, as well as MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies. In addition, the building incorporates the Okawa Center for Future Children, made possible by a $27 million donation from Isao Okawa, Chairman of CSK Corporation and Sega Enterprises Ltd.

Image credits

Andy Ryan

Details

Address

75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA

Renewal Status

Complete

School or Unit

School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P)

Use

Academic

Project Team

ArchitectsFumihiko Maki & Associates, lead designer, Tokyo, Japan, and Leers Weinzapfel Associates, Boston, MA
Construction manager: Bond Brothers, Everett, MA
MIT team: Arne Abramson, Jonathan Himmel, Sudy Nally, and Milan Pavlinic

Scope

163,000 gsf

Design Features

  • Seven research laboratories are organized around a spectacular central atrium, together with top-floor event and display spaces, lecture and conference rooms, and a cafe - all overlooking the Charles River and the Boston skyline.
  • An outer atrium rises four floors from street level, flanked by exhibition spaces. An inner atrium with social/exhibition space rises two floors at the third and fourth floors, reached by a spectacular staircase rising from the outer atrium below.
  • The sixth floor event space includes:
    100-seat auditorium
    3,500 square foot multipurpose (demo/exhibition/large meeting) space
    2,500 square foot conference room with outdoor terrace
    3,500 square foot reception/dining area
    1,800 square foot catering kitchen

Awards

2012 Silver Award in Engineering Excellence, presented by The American Council of Engineering Companies of Massachusetts (ACEC) to Weidlinger Associates, Inc.

Map

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