MIT Sloan School Concours

Early conceptual view of Landsdowne Quad and 35 Landsdowne.

CAD plan of Landsdowne Quad

35 Landsdowne Street Biotechnology Building - MIT University Park, Cambridge.

This biotechnology office building is similar to the first two Koetter, Kim office buildings built in the development--essentially a large box of a building which gains it specific identity and architectural character by way of its specific location within the master plan. In this case, the building fronts Landsdowne Quad, the second largest public green space in the development, and the more private of the two parks.

Circumstantially, the building has three primary facades: one facing Landsdowne Quad, the other Landsdowne Street, and the other Franklin Street. The quad facing facade (shown above) was give particular attention to in its development, as it was almost directly facing West in addition to its fronting the primary open space.

These particular urban and site pressures resulted in a building that expressed a highly neutralized grid or deep frame on the quad side with a secondary window grid inserted behind it. Unlike the earlier two buildings, with their overt attention to wall surface articulation, this building was intended to be quite free of the surface mannerisms that are characteristic of much of Koetter, Kim's work.

Later DD phase view of the corner at Landsdowne

site:

MIT University Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts

design:

1996-7

area:

approx. 135,000 sf.

design responsibility:

project designer (as employee of Koetter, Kim & Associates, Inc. )

statistics:

This project was part of phase three work at MIT University Park in Cambridge, an award winning master plan by Koetter, Kim & Associates. The building was planned as a biotechnology office building that could support a varied amount of lab-based research tenants with a mixture of typical offices. The five story building has floor plates of approximately 30,000 square feet each and is planned on a 25 x 35 foot structural module along the perimeter that lends itself well to both typical offices and labs. Because lab buildings have such intense mechanical requirements the roof level acquired as much floor area potential as the zoning code would allow. Each floor has the mechanical capacity to meet its own laboratory air requirements for supply and exhaust, while roof top mechanical rooms house more common air handlers, chillers and pumps, enabling a non-lab tenant to occupy an entire floor plate--free of mechanical space.

client:

Forest City Development

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site:	MIT University Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts
design:	1996-7
area:	approx. 135,000 sf.
design responsibility:	project designer (as employee of Koetter, Kim & Associates, Inc. )
statistics:	This project was part of phase three work at MIT University Park in Cambridge, an award winning master plan by Koetter, Kim & Associates. The building was planned as a biotechnology office building that could support a varied amount of lab-based research tenants with a mixture of typical offices. The five story building has floor plates of approximately 30,000 square feet each and is planned on a 25 x 35 foot structural module along the perimeter that lends itself well to both typical offices and labs. Because lab buildings have such intense mechanical requirements the roof level acquired as much floor area potential as the zoning code would allow. Each floor has the mechanical capacity to meet its own laboratory air requirements for supply and exhaust, while roof top mechanical rooms house more common air handlers, chillers and pumps, enabling a non-lab tenant to occupy an entire floor plate--free of mechanical space.
client:	Forest City Development