Architecture for physics
In the last year I have seen
four physics institutes that are located in new, or at least very recent,
buildings.
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The Center for
Theoretical Physics at MIT, Cambridge
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The Perimeter
Institute in Waterloo, Ontario
·
The George and Cynthia
Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M
·
My own institute,
SISSA, in Trieste
The CTP at MIT
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The CTP at MIT is a venerable
institution that I know quite well because I spent a year there in 1985 and
visited several times thereafter. It was located the two upper floors of
building 6, one wing of the historical main building of MIT. In order to
expand it, the court between building 6 and building 4 has been enclosed in
glass and several floors of offices have been built therein. In the picture on the left
(taken from the CTP web site), the old building 6 is on the left, the new
building (6c) on the right. There is a large gap in the middle, and the two parts
are joined by bridges. The whole roof and one side of 6c, and most of the
outer walls of the lecture rooms are made of glass, so there is a lot of
natural light. The old part of the institute
has also been refurbished. This is the entrance, covered in slate and
featuring the pictures of faculty, postdocs and students. An interior staircase, shown
in the picture below, now joins the two floors in building 6, so one can move
between floors without having to go out in the main corridor: |
For those who have been there
in the past, rest assured that old decor is still in place, like this picture
and this row of Ansel Adams
prints
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There are several sitting areas
with blackboards in the corridors and common areas.
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The Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario
This is the newest institute of
the four, having been established in 2000 on a fund donated by
Mike Lazaridis of RIM (the
makers of Blackberry). It was originally located in the old Waterloo post
office
and moved into the new,
purpose-built building in 2004.
The ideas behind the design of
the building are explained in this
web page.
It is a great place to work in.
Basically, it has a central court with a glass ceiling
surrounded by an outer layer of
offices. The two sides of the building are quite different:
the side overlooking the lake
is all glass, whereas the southwest facing one is black on
the outside, with smaller
windows.
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Inside, there are lots of meeting places like these in the common
areas
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As you see some even have
fireplaces that are lit during cold days.
A new wing, called the “Steven
Hawking center” is currently under construction,
more or less doubling the
available space.
Work on the new wing went on
during the winter. After months of work on the
foundations, suddenly these
beams went up in a couple of days
And this is the state of the
building in june 2010:
Mitchell Institute, Texas A&M
This building hosts the
department of physics and astronomy of the university and
was inaugurated in 2009. Its
design is the most elegant of the four.
The building has an oval plan
with wedge-shaped offices on the outside.
The colors are typical for
Texas. The windows have T-shaped structures to provide shade.
(I had seen the same type of
shade on the windows of the university of Milano Bicocca.)
The interior of the building is
hollow
The floor of the central court
is decorated with a Penrose tiling and there is a Foucault
pendulum hanging in the middle.
See a movie here
SISSA
This is the newest building of
the four, having been inaugurated in july 2010.
Unlike the other three it was
not purpose-built, but instead has been obtained
by reconverting an old
hospital, originally built in 1958.
It has by far the most striking
position, overlooking the gulf of Trieste.
In front of the building,
hiding a two-floor underground parking, is an Italian-style garden,
surrounded by a large park.
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The main theatre is still being
built
The main building has eight
floors, the office floors being characterized
by a 110m long corridor, with
almost all offices on one side.
The corridors and the marble
staircases retain a bit of the original
character of the building
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Common areas exist but are
mostly not furnished yet.
August 2010