Buildings – even the most cement-filled – are organic; they change through interaction with the parasites that infest them (us, mostly). How often do architects consider this? Ask any scientist who moves into a new laboratory building and you’ll be met with eyerolls and exasperated stories. The new neuroscience institute that I work in is fantastic in many ways, but has some extremely puzzling features such as the need to repeatedly use an ID card to unlock almost every door in the lab. This is in contrast to my previous home of the Salk Institute which was a long open space separated only by clear glass allowing free movement and easy collaboration.
I mostly mention this because the video above – on How Buildings Learn – has a fantastic story at the beginning about MIT’s famous media lab:
I was at the Media Lab when it was brand new. In the…
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