On Vassar Street, in the heart of the MIT campus, the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing recently opened the doors to its up-to-date headquarters in Building 45. The building’s central location and welcoming design will lend a hand create a up-to-date connectivity cluster at MIT and make the space a multi-faceted space. role.
“The university has broad authority in computer science across MIT,” says Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “The building was designed as a crossroads for campus computing. It is a place where a mix of people gather to connect, engage, and catalyze collaboration in computer science, and it is home to an interconnected set of computer science research groups from many departments and laboratories.
“Computers are the defining technology of our times and will continue to be so in the future,” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “As MIT people make progress in key fields from artificial intelligence to climate, this fantastic new building will enable collaboration across computer science, engineering, life sciences, economics and countless other fields, encouraging the cross-pollination of the ideas that inspire us to generate fresh solutions. The university opened its doors at the right time.”
Physical embodiment
The approximately 178,000-square-foot, eight-story building was designed to be the physical embodiment of the three-fold mission of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing: to strengthen the foundations of computer science and artificial intelligence; to infuse the leading field of computer science with disciplines from across MIT; and to advance the social, ethical, and political dimensions of computing.
The first two floors of the building, intended for the campus community and the general public to enter and engage with the university, include multiple conference areas, including a 60-seat classroom, a 250-seat lecture theatre and a range of spaces for learning and social interaction.
This semester, academic activities both in the classroom and in the lecture hall have begun, with 13 classes for undergraduate and graduate students. The subjects include 6.C35/6.C85 (Interactive Data Visualization and Society), classes taught by lecturers from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Urban Studies and Planning departments. The class was created as part of the project Common ground for computer science educationa university interdepartmental initiative that brings together multiple departments to develop and teach up-to-date courses and launch up-to-date programs that combine computer science with other disciplines.
“The new college building not only meets educational and research needs, but also supports broad community connections. It was especially exciting to see faculty teaching classes in the building and a lobby full of students on any given day, immersed in their studies or simply enjoying the space during a break,” says Asu Ozdaglar, associate dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and head of EECS.
The building will also house 50 research groups dealing with computer science, which corresponds to the number of up-to-date lecturers hired by the university – 25 in key IT positions and 25 in positions shared with MIT departments. These groups bring together a mix of up-to-date and existing teams in related research areas spanning floors four through seven of the building.
In mid-January, the first twenty research groups moved into the building, including lecturers from EECS departments; Aeronautics and Astronautics; Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Mechanical engineering; and Economics, which operate at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Information Systems and Decisions Laboratory. Research groups form a coherent whole dealing with deep learning and generative artificial intelligence, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics, reinforcement learning, game theory methods and the social impact of artificial intelligence.
More will follow, including some of the 10 lecturers who have been hired common positions by the university with departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Chemical Engineering, Comparative Media and Writing Studies, Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Music and Performing Arts, Mechanical Engineering, Nuclear Science and Engineering, Political Science, and the MIT Sloan School of Management.
“I look forward to expanding the building’s capabilities, facilitating the development of even deeper connections that the college has established to date, spanning all five schools,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, chief innovation and strategy officer, dean of the School of Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Other university programs and activities supported in the building include MIT Quest for Intelligence, the Center for Computational Science and Engineering, and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. There are also dedicated spaces for the dean’s office and cross-sectional areas of the university, the so-called Social and ethical responsibility of ITCommon Ground and Special Semester Topics in Computing – a up-to-date experimental program that aims to bring together MIT researchers and visiting researchers in a common space for a semester dedicated to areas of interest.
Additional spaces include meeting rooms on the third floor that can be used by any unit of the college. These rooms are available to both residents and non-residents to host weekly group meetings or other computer-related activities.
For the entire MIT community, the building’s main event space, along with three meeting rooms, is available for meetings, events and conferences. Situated on eight floors on the top floor with stunning views of Cambridge, Boston and the Great Dome, event space is already seeing a surge in interest and is taking reservations for next fall and has quickly become a popular spot on campus.
Form and function
Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the state-of-the-art education, research and collaboration space took shape over four years of design and construction.
“In a new, multi-purpose building like this, my job as dean is to make sure that the building meets the functional needs of the college’s mission,” Huttenlocher says. “I think the most rewarding thing for me now that the building is complete is seeing how its form supports the wide range of intended uses.”
Consistent with MIT’s commitment to environmental sustainability, the building was designed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. Final review by the U.S. Green Building Council leads to Platinum certification.
The glass shingles on the south wall of the building serve a dual function: they let in plenty of natural featherlight and create a double-layered façade of interlocking elements that create a deep, sealed cavity, which is expected to significantly reduce energy consumption.
Other sustainability features include built-in carbon tracking, on-site stormwater management, indoor water-saving devices and a vast green roof. The building is also the first to utilize heat from a recently completed utility plant built on top of Building 42, which converted conventional distributed steam-based systems to more proficient balmy water systems. This conversion significantly increases the building’s ability to provide more proficient, medium-temperature balmy water throughout the facility.
The ceremonial unveiling
AND dedication ceremony construction is planned for spring.
This momentous event will mark the official completion and opening of the up-to-date building and the culmination of a lot of tough work, commitment and collaboration to bring it to fruition.
It will also honor the 2018 foundation gift that created the college from Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Blackstone, a global asset management and financial services firm. It will also honor Sebastian Man ’79, SM ’80, the first donor to support the building after Schwarzman. Man’s gift will be recognized by the naming of a key space in the building that will enhance the academic and research activities of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Institute.