Green Building (MIT)

Green Building, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Cecil and Ida Green Building, also called the Green Building or Building 54, is an academic and research building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. It was designed by Araldo Cossutta and I. M. Pei.[1] Pei, among the world's most noted architects, had received his bachelor's degree from MIT in 1940. Principal donor Cecil Howard Green received a bachelor's degree and master's degree from MIT and was a co-founder of Texas Instruments.

Architecture

The Green Building was constructed during 1962-1964, in reinforced concrete. It has 18 floors, equivalent to 21 stories or 295 feet (90 m) tall, with a concrete facade that more or less matches the limestone and concrete of the older MIT buildings near it. The basement of the building is below sea level and connects to the MIT tunnel system. Three elevators operate in the Green Building. There are staircases at both the east and west sides, whose exterior facades present a vast windowless expanse relieved only by one-story tall concrete recessed panels. On the "LL" level (actually one story above ground level), is Room 54-100, a large lecture hall. The second floor formerly housed the Lindgren Library, part of MIT's library system, but this separate facility was consolidated into another library in 2009.

The Green Building is the tallest building in Cambridge.[2] When it was built, there was a limit on the number of floors. Thus, it was designed to be on stilts, with the first occupied floor approximately 30 feet above grade in order to "circumvent" this law. The footprint of every floor measures only 60 by 120 feet (18 by 36m), which research groups quickly outgrew, forcing some of them to disperse elsewhere on campus.[3]

The tower's height has some functional purpose, since its roof supports meteorological instruments and radio communications equipment, plus a white spherical radome enclosing long-distance weather radar apparatus. This technical equipment all requires a line-of-sight vantage point for optimum range and accuracy, and would have required construction of some kind of tower to function as intended. To minimize interference with radio signals, other buildings on MIT's central campus are less than half the height of the Green Building, and the dormitory towers of Eastgate, Westgate, and MacGregor House are at least 1500 feet (450 m) away.[4]

Occupancy

The Green Building is the main facility of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science (EAPS), also known as Course 12. The departmental headquarters is on the 9th floor of the building. The lower floors of the building contain the Planetary Science section. The middle floors have the Earth Science section (Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry). The upper floors house the Atmospheric Science section (which also includes Oceanography and Climatology).

Problems

When the Green Building was first opened, the isolated prominence of the building and its relative proximity to the Charles River basin increased wind speeds in the high open archway at its base, preventing people from entering or leaving the building through the hinged main doors on windy days, necessitating use of a tunnel connecting to the other buildings.[5] Large wood panels were temporarily erected in the open concourse to block the wind, and revolving doors were later installed at the ground floor entries to ameliorate this problem somewhat.[5] Several windows cracked, and at least one large pane popped out on upper stories, at least in part due to the effects of wind, eventually requiring all the windows to be replaced.[5] A few years later, a similar-appearing problem was repeated in Boston's John Hancock Tower located in Back Bay across the river, a 60-story skyscraper which happened to be designed by the same architectural firm.

It is incorrectly rumored that Alexander Calder's monumental sculpture The Big Sail, was situated in front of the building to deflect the high winds. The sculpture is located too far from the building entryway to have much effect on wind velocities there.[6]

Hacks

Because of its height and visibility from the Boston Back Bay neighborhood across the Charles River Basin, plus its rectangular grid of large 6-by-8-foot (1.8 m × 2.4 m) upright rectangular single-pane windows forming a crude 9 x 18 dot-matrix display, the Green Building has been the site of many hacks or pranks.[7] In 1993, one widely viewed hack repurposed the nine top-floor windows as an enormous digital VU meter for the traditional Fourth of July concert of the Boston Pops orchestra.[8] Several other simpler hacks have used the entire window array for stationary displays; this practice is sufficiently commonplace to have acquired the term greenspeak[9][10] (which should not be confused with the famously obscure Delphic pronouncements[11][12] of former Federal Reserve Bank chairman Alan Greenspan).

In September 2011, hackers installed 153 (= 9 x 17) custom-made wirelessly controlled color-changing high-power LED lights into every window above the first floor. They displayed a waving American flag throughout the evening of September 11, 2011 in remembrance of the September 11 attacks of 2001. For a short time in the early morning of September 12, the lights displayed a Tetris game, thus realizing a long-standing hack proposal, the "Holy Grail" of hacks. The display hardware had occasional glitches, and was removed as of September 13. The hardware and software designs were further developed and refined for better reliability. On April 20, 2012, MIT hackers successfully turned the Green Building into a huge, playable Tetris game, operated from a wireless control podium at a comfortable viewing distance in front of the building. Visitors to Campus Preview Weekend (a gathering for admitted prospective freshman students) were invited to play the game on the colossal 80-by-250-foot (24 m × 76 m) display grid, which was claimed to be the second-largest full-color video display in the US.[13][14][15]

Instead of a one-shot temporary installation, the hackers have designed and built a permanent facility that can be re-used repeatedly by the MIT community. An understanding has been reached with the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), which is headquartered in the Green Building, to allow the light display hardware to remain installed in each window. To avoid annoying the occupants and to allow late-working staff to "opt out", each light display is equipped with a manual override button, which will disable the pixel lighting for that window for several hours after it is pressed. In addition, the hackers have released Open Source software tools used to develop new display patterns, so that others can design and deploy new stationary or animated images, in cooperation with the hacker engineers.[13]

On the night after the bombings of the Boston marathon of April 15, 2013, the Green Building lighting displayed an American flag pattern.[16][17] After the shooting death of MIT Campus Patrolman Sean Collier by the alleged bombers a few days later, a 250 foot (76 m) black ribbon pattern was displayed in his memory.[16]

As a prototype feasibility demonstration, the Tech Model Railroad Club (located in Building N52) had years earlier added a scale model of the Green Building to its HO scale model railroad layout. Passersby inside Building N52 can view the model building and railway layout through a large window and play a monochromatic version of Tetris via remote control, accompanied by authentic-sounding music, even when the facility is closed.[18]

Other hacks utilize the height of the building, such as a 1974 failed attempt to operate a giant yoyo from the roof of the tower.[19][20] Launching of projectiles from the roof is strongly discouraged, due to the unpredictable high wind gusts, posing a serious danger to passersby, and residents of nearby East Campus dormitory.

Pumpkin Drop

At midnight on the last Saturday of October, 1West (the smallest hall in the East Campus dorm) drops a large number of pumpkins (up to the low hundreds) off the roof of the Green Building. Students come to watch, but the area around the foot of the building is quarantined off, to prevent anyone from being hit.[21][22][23][24]

Art

The Green Building faces McDermott Court (also known as the dot).[25] This grassy area is flanked by the 33-ton metal sculpture La Grande Voile (The Big Sail), one of Alexander Calder's "stabile" artworks.[26][27]

In May 2011, a temporary artwork was installed in the arched "breezeway" at the base of the Green Building, to take advantage of its legendary wind gusts. Designed by Meejin Yoon, an Associate Professor of Architecture, Wind Screen was an array of wind-driven micro-turbine generators that would light up whenever there was enough air movement.[28] This installation was featured in the FAST (Festival of Art, Science, and Technology) celebration, part of the MIT 150 commemoration of MIT's 150th anniversary.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Shrock, Robert Rakes (1982). Geology at MIT 1865-1965: A History of the First Hundred Years of Geology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT Press. p. 166. ISBN 9780262192118.
  2. ↑ Bushra B. Makiya (1999-10-05). "This Week in MIT History". The Tech 119 (47). Retrieved 2014-05-29.
  3. ↑ Simha, O. Robert (2001). "MIT Campus Planning 1960-2000: An Annotated Chronology". Cambridge, MA: MIT Office of the Executive Vice President. p. 32–34. ISBN 0262692945.
  4. ↑ "Welcome to the MIT Campus Map". MIT Campus Map. MIT. Retrieved 2011-05-12.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Interviewer: Susan Crowley (February 9, 2005). William R. Dickson Oral History Project. (Interview). MIT Institute Archives & Special Collection. Retrieved 2014-05-29.
  6. ↑ "List Curators Discuss Evolving Face of Public Art by Benjamin P. Gleitzman". The Tech 126 (36). Sep 8, 2006. Retrieved 2014-05-29. Interview with curators Bill Arning and Patricia Fuller.
  7. ↑ "Hacks on The Green Building (54)". MIT IHFTP Hack Gallery. Retrieved 2011-05-08.
  8. ↑ "The Green Building Sound (VU) Meter". MIT IHTFP Hack Gallery. Retrieved 2011-05-08.
  9. ↑ Institute Historian T.F. Peterson (2011). Nightwork : a history of hacks and pranks at MIT (Revised 2011 ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press / MIT Museum. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-262-51584-9. Greenspeak spoken here
  10. ↑ "Red Sox Greenspeak". MIT IHTFP Hack Gallery. Retrieved 2011-05-08.
  11. ↑ "Greenspeak". UVa Writing Program Instructor Site. University of Virginia. Retrieved 2011-05-08.
  12. ↑ "Greenspeak". FRB Dallas [website]. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Retrieved 2011-05-08.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Pourian, Jessica J. (May 1, 2012). "The ‘holy grail’ of hacks: The construction of one of the most anticipated hacks of all time". The Tech 132 (22). Retrieved 2012-05-06.
  14. ↑ Parker, Brock (April 24, 2012). "Hackers convert MIT building in giant Tetris video game". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
  15. ↑ "Tetris on the Green Building". MIT IHTFP Hack Gallery. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 MIT News Office (April 21, 2013). "MIT's Green Building pays tribute to the week's events". MIT News Office. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  17. ↑ Kennedy, Shred. "Famous MIT Green Building Displays American Flag Lights After Bombing". The Awesome Boston. The Awesome Boston. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  18. ↑ "Green Building". Tmrc.mit.edu. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
  19. ↑ Moore, Barb (January 16, 1974). "Unusual Activities". The Tech 93 (56). p. 3. Retrieved 2011-05-12.
  20. ↑ "Front page photo caption". The Tech 94 (5). February 22, 1974. pp. 1, 4. Retrieved 2011-05-12.
  21. ↑ Lydia K. '14 (Oct 31, 2011). "Pumpkin Drop". MIT Admissions. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
  22. ↑ Michael C. '16 (Oct 28, 2012). "MIT PUMPKIN DROP 2012!". MIT Admissions. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
  23. ↑ Hao, Ziwei (2010-10-29). "How to get wicked this weekend". The Tech 130 (49). Retrieved 2014-05-30.
  24. ↑ Jared L. Wong; Mark Fayngersh; Miho Kitagawa (2011-11-01). "Photo Gallery". The Tech 131 (49). Retrieved 2014-05-30.
  25. ↑ Matthew Palmer (2000-04-28). "McDermott Building Plan Altered". The Tech 170 (23). Retrieved 2009-01-19.
  26. ↑ "La Grande Voile (The Big Sail)". MIT List Visual Arts Center: Collections. MIT Council for the Arts. Retrieved 2011-05-12.
  27. ↑ "'The Big Sail (La Grande Voile)' by Alexander Calder". Virtual Globetrotting. 2007-05-10. Retrieved 2011-01-19.
  28. ↑ "Meejin Yoon: Wind Screen". Arts at MIT [website]. MIT Council for the Arts. Retrieved 2011-05-08.

External links

Coordinates: 42°21′38″N 71°05′21″W / 42.360431°N 71.089109°W