"I Live in a Frank Gehry"
For the next in our unconventional-campus-spaces series, I could not neglect one of Boston's most controversial works, Frank Gehry's Stata Center. Home to MIT's computer scientists and electrical engineers, it has been described as both "an architectural nightmare" and "a metaphor for the freedom, daring, and creativity of the research that's supposed to occur inside it." I chatted with computer science student David Stein who, though doesn't actually live in Stata, has spent countless hours inhabiting and exploring this highly-debated deconstructivist megastructure.
What do you do in Stata? How much time do you spend here?
I'm on the third floor in the Distributed Robotics Lab under the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and we basically work on how to get a bunch of low-ability robots to do lots of things. We've got self-organizing robots, underwater robots, gardening robots... Over the summer, I was here for about 100 hours a week. I guess I've slept here a few times, but don't tell my professor that.
How does the layout of the building contribute to so many different labs and groups occupying the space?
There is a defined area for each lab group, and within each of them are open communal spaces that are really effective. They facilitate interactions very easily -- it feels natural for all of us to eat lunch together, and there is a sense of openness and collaboration that wouldn't necessarily be the case if we were placed in any other rigid, boxy research building. The group dynamic is really great. However, I've heard a few professors mention that because the walls are curved and so many columns and crannies, it's difficult to add more spaces for groups to expand.
This is Shady. (on the left part of the window)
In light of the recent lawsuit against Gehry for flaws in the building's design, what would you say are its most pressing problems?
The leaking, for sure. One of the Ph.D students in my lab built a set of pretty cool-looking gutters that channels the water from the ceiling into the bucket. Also, an entire wall of my lab is a window without any shades, so there is often an unbearable glare on our computer screens. So to combat that, we actually designed a robot that climbs on the window's aluminum frame and runs around with a deployable shade. His name is Shady. [You can meet Shady here.]
My python professor tells me that although he's been in Stata since it was built in 2004, he still gets lost. How does the labyrinthine navigability affect people's daily activities here?
Oh, there have definitely been times where I needed to get somewhere in the building and I couldn't find a staircase to get there. There are two towers and nine floors, which crash together in unpredictable places, but I mainly stay in Gates Tower or the fourth floor common area where we have large gatherings. You slowly start to learn that some floors are very logically connected -- such as the fifth and sixth floors, which have double height spaces that join similar lab groups -- whereas others are really segmented, and you sometimes just have to...guess.
Do the majority of your colleagues enjoy the building? Do you like it?
We complain about it a lot. That's pretty typical. But that said, not being an architecture student, I think that for a place where so much group thinking and collaboration happens, it accomplishes what it does pretty well.
We bumped into Praveen Subramani, another senior in computer science, working in the fourth floor common area. When asked about his favorite part about Stata, he said, "The staircases are beautiful. Even though its not the most direct, Gehry's grand staircase is majestic and inviting, and I would never take the elevator. Also, student street on the first floor is a great place for meeting people -- it's like a tube that funnels everyone into the same, communal circulation."
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Anyone can build a cube. This building is visually exciting. Fix the flaws and move on.
It's pretty disappointing that form is so much more important than function for Gehry that he glosses over some fairly major details. I like the idea of a decomposed building like this, and it sounds like it still creates some nice spaces and interactions, but leaks big enough to need buckets and no shade for people working in the spaces both are huge failings, not just fit and finish details.
Hi Amazing Design of this building and how it made.??????????????????
This is not the first, nor will it be the last of Gehry's leaking buildings; I think it is good to see a lawsuit claiming faulty design. Let's all hope there is never a fire in the Stata: if people get lost now, just imagine the confusion and panic if you added some smoke... Gehry builds monuments to his name and his ego and the gullible public eats them up. Every now and then something works well enough to uphold the legend... A pity, the man has talent in spades.
It is indeed unfortunate that Gehry has made his reputation on buildings that are spectacular forms but do not function well. This connotes a disrespect for pure architecture. Purist architecture blends with its environment and is designed with function at its core.
Uh, things like blinds are typically something that owners provide in their buildings at move in along with desks, trashcans, etc. A lack of shading falls directly on MIT and not on Gehry.
Dan -- external shading strategies are often a significant part of architecture. Perhaps more daylighting studies could have been conducted during the design process, or at least consideration of the use of louvers or toplighting for the visual comfort of Stata's residents. Usually, I believe interior shading is implemented only after a lack of or gap in external shading.
Function should always govern form. Though it is exciting when you can make it into an aesthetic piece as well. What a pity more effort was not put into the engineering side...
This is a stunning building. But there is something hostile about creating buildings that are uncomfortable and impractical. Walls that are not vertical or rectangular are disturbing. This kind of exploration is intellectually quite fascinating, but it is kinder when done as sculpture.
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