The Boston Globe’s Mark Feeney chronicles MIT’s adaptive reuse of the historic Metropolitan Warehouse into the new home of the School of Architecture and Planning. “As spaces, our studios used to be a lot more like labs, but now they are grand and full of light and celebratory in a way that hopefully enables better work,” says Prof. Ana Miljački, Head of the Department of Architecture.
Dezeen’s Ellen Eberhardt describes how the renovation of the historic Metropolitan Warehouse, the new home of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, maintains “details such as the building's fortress-like corner towers and crenellated corbeled cornices, while punching new windows into its two-foot-thick walls.” Eberhardt highlights how “the project included careful ‘cutting strategies’ and the application of new support systems to shift existing loads within the building to make room for modern academic spaces such as studios and makerspaces.”
For The Architect’s Newspaper, reporter Fred A. Bernstein details the renovation of the Metropolitan Warehouse, the new home of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, transforming the fortress-like storage warehouse into “light-filled classrooms and studios.” The building is “going to be a living laboratory and a teaching tool for generations of students,” shares Prof. John Ochsendorf. “Twenty years ago, MIT took me inside and asked if I could see a way to reuse the building. And I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ It was hard to imagine it could be as open and light-filled as it is. That took heroics.”
In a “radical example of adaptive reuse” and a reimagining of a historic Cambridge landmark, MIT has transformed the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse into the new home of the School of Architecture and Planning, bringing together MIT’s architecture and design programs into one connected academic hub, reports Boston Business Journal reporter Maya Shavit. “There will be new installations and new manifestations of our students’ creativity every single week,” explains Prof. John Ochsendorf. “That’s unpredictable and messy, but it’s also part of the fun of being at a place like MIT where people are constantly inventing the future.”
As part of MIT’s Artfinity festival - a new festival of the arts at MIT featuring 80 free performing and visual arts events, celebrating creativity and community – this month’s After Dark event on Thursday, March 13th at the MIT Museum will be free and open to the public, reports Marianna Orozco for The Boston Globe. Attendees will be able to enjoy “a night of activities, including a ‘Flash Portrait’ drawing and textile design, as well as live DJ sets, open exhibits by faculty, and a talk from Behnaz Farahi, the interdisciplinary designer behind ‘Gaze to the Stars,’ which has brought the MIT dome to life,” explains Orozco.
MIT’s Artfinity festival kicked off with a performance of “SONIC JUBILANCE” at the newly opened Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building, reports Maddie Browning for WBUR. The campus-wide festival, which runs through May 2, is open to the public and features student, faculty and staff participation in “concerts, augmented reality experiences, exhibitions, films and more,” writes Browning. Artfinity is an opportunity "to show that the arts are very important and very central to the lives of people at MIT,” said Prof. Marcus Thompson, festival co-lead.
MIT’s Artfinity Festival kicks off on Saturday, February 15th with a celebration of the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building and Thomas Tull Concert Hall featuring a free afternoon open house and evening concert, writes A.Z. Madonna for The Boston Globe. “What this building brings to us is support for performance of all different types of music, whether it’s classical or jazz or world music, and then the ability to support various functions with our students,” says Keeril Makan, associate dean of SHASS.
Cambridge Day reporter Susan Saccoccia spotlights the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building, which opens to the public on Saturday, February 15th, with a celebratory concert called “Sonic Jubilance,” the start of a “monthslong festival of 80 events across the campus, free and open to the public.” Prof. Marcus Thompson notes: “The extent of art-making on the MIT campus is equal to that of a major city. It’s a miracle that it’s all right here, by people in science and technology who are absorbed in creating a new world and who also value the past, present and future of music and the arts.”
Boston Globe reporter Malcom Gay spotlights the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building, a “new hub for music instruction and performance” for MIT’s 30 on-campus ensembles and more than 1,500 students enrolled in music classes each academic year. Gay notes that: “The more than 35,000-square-foot structure offers a variety of classroom, performance, rehearsal, and studio spaces.” He adds that there will be “more than 25 concerts at Tull Concert Hall that are open to the public this spring.”
A more than $40 million investment to add advanced nano-fabrication equipment and capabilities to MIT.nano will significantly expand the center’s nanofabrication capabilities, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. The new equipment, which will also be available to scientists outside MIT, will allow “startups and students access to wafer-making equipment used by larger companies. These tools will allow its researchers to make prototypes of an array of microelectronic devices.”
Chronicle visits the new MIT Museum, highlighting a number of exhibits, including one exploring the research behind the hunt for gravitational waves and another that examines the impacts humans are having on the environment. “We try to be a window, going both ways, between MIT and the rest of the public,” explains Prof. John Durant, director of the MIT Museum. “We’re also trying to get people to have a glimpse of how a world-class research institution actually works.”
PBS host Jared Bowen highlights the scientific advancements on display at the MIT Museum. “We’re here to turn MIT inside out,” says Prof. John Durant, director of the MIT Museum. “We want people to understand what contemporary research and innovation are all about and what they mean for everyday life.”
Fast Company reporter Nate Berg spotlights the grand opening of the redesigned MIT Museum. “Braiding the science and the art together, I think it places the science into the context that it is part of our culture and our lives, it’s not a white tower experience,” says Ann Neumann, director of exhibitions and galleries at the museum.
GBH Open Studio reporter Jared Bowen explores the new MIT Museum in Kendall Square. “The reimagined MIT Museum looks at all the advances in technology and their positive – and controversial – effects on society, from genetic engineering to the increasing role that artificial intelligence is playing in art and media,” says Bowen.
MIT Museum Director John Durant speaks with Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney about the significance of the new location of the MIT Museum and what makes the museum such a special place. Of the museum’s new home in the heart of Kendall Square, Durant says, “I think MIT is committing itself here to the importance of its museum as a kind of gateway institution, as a way of helping the wider community understand what MIT is about.”