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Published online 28 November 2007 | Nature 450, 592-593 (2007) | doi:10.1038/450592a
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Monuments and instruments
The architecture of the buildings in which researchers work can have a crucial effect on the fruits of their labour, Emma Marris finds.
“Vision — and quirkiness.” Those were the qualities that the Ray and Maria Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was meant to embody, according to an MIT statement at the time of its dedication in 2004.
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When architects get prizes, the people suffer. Architects often arrogantly try to plan how people will use the buildings they design. The most famous architects are often the most arrogant. The more direct control the future users of a building have on its design, the more they are likely to be satisfied with it - and the less likely it is that other architects and architectural critics will admire the building.
The architecture of my institute, the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, India was inspired by the Elephanta and Jogeshwari caves. Aesthetically beautiful to the onlooker, the structure got an award. The architect internalised that like sages meditating in the caves, the researchers would be contemplating in their rooms independently. This is in contrast to the internal openness of the Ray and Maria Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One similarity of IGIDR with the Stata Centre is its vulnerability to rain. Come monsoons, one has to tread carefully on the corridors. Skids and some bruises, if not broken bones, are common and it is this that instils a sense of camaraderie. In practice, researchers would love their privacy and also like some spaces of interaction. Interactions which go beyond the seminars, class rooms, and cafeteria … Are architects listening?
We have a building here at the University of Cape Town which embodies - for me - the idiocy of letting architects decide how people should interact. Oh, and how the building should look, to0. The Sports Centre at UCT is a very functional building, which works well as a sporting facility - but is not good to work in, and looks horrible. There are a host of design flaws, which result in constant leaks; the building looked at from the public viewpoint - the adjacent highway - resembles nothing more than a shabby warehouse; the restaurant / club facility adjoining the sports halls has a set of curved walls that make installing anything very difficult...did I mention it is finished throughout inside with undressed cement? It also has a comletely unnecessary detached facade on the University side, which only takes up space without providing anything more than shade, added to "add balance". The (deceased) architect who designed it was notorious for a number of other, very curved buildings, one of which was largely redesigned because it was almost unusable as a shopping centre - and another of which, a University residence, I lived in for two years which had many of the same problems as the Sports Centre. Including the fact that it was a very good wind tunnel, which is a silly thing in a place like Cape Town, where windspeeds are often high enough to blow vehicles over....
Working in the bowls of a 1960's hospital tower block of decadence, in a lab that was clearly designed for the proposes of a X-ray facility, we dream of the prospect of people tapping on our windows. Unfortunately the only Windows we see are the variety that tend to crash and generate blue-screens indicating an impromptu end to your work. Whereas one may argue that such conditions lead to greater productivity as there are "less distractions", and of course those who direct research from a spacious, light and airy office tend to be of that opinion, this is clearly not the case. However, for the vast majority of researches the architectural designs of a building tend to be an issue over which they have no control, and lab-space competition in many institutes results in one taking what they can get and adapting this to their needs. However, one does not require the likes of Norman Foster to design a practical research facility. Perhaps those organisations with the economic prowess allowing them to make such bold design statements would do more for the institute and field by building functional spaces in which people can work, and investing those saved millions in the research itself. Lets leave cutting edge design to the Faculty of Arts!
I am surprised by so many complains about openness in research buildings; it makes me wonder if this is a confirmation of the fact that people who are unpleased are more likely to be proactive (leave a comment) than people who are pleased with the state of things. In my experience, most of the researchers, when given the option, prefer open spaces with windows and natural light. In fact all my lab mates have opted for a desk near the window, in the common room, despite the fact that there are two unoccupied (and very private, no windows) rooms, advertised by my advisor to every new arrival in the lab as the perfect place to concentrate on your work. There is true to the fact that too much innovation brings higher risks of design flaws, but I think it more than makes up by giving you a feeling of belonging to something different, a sense of identity. I think that humans have a need for aesthetical variation and satisfaction; want a proof of that? Just think at all the time spent in choosing the right color and design for your clothes (even if you are a researcher), when it would be so much more simple and pragmatic to submit your measurements on line and have somebody deliver you whatever clothes as long as they fit you. (this holds true even more if you do have a lot of privacy in your lab and nobody will really see what you are wearing)