What We Found This Morning

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What happens when "creative clutter" meets transparency in a new, elegant building? Robert Campbell reviews the new MIT Media Lab building at MIT.

Frank Moss, the Media Lab’s director, puts it this way: “It will take time to regain the sense of mess and to repopulate with junk.’’

It’s the classic marriage of form and content. The new building is Snow White and the Media Lab is Mad Max. Time will reveal how well the marriage works.

That said, viewed simply and purely as a work of architecture, this is a wonderful building. You can think of it as an exercise in transparency. The Media Lab has long been famous for hiding itself in a building by I.M. Pei that was a nearly windowless box. The new building, which joins the Pei at one edge, is exactly the opposite. From outside, you can look all the way through it from one end to the other. It’s sheathed in shimmering glass and metal screens that allow about half the sunlight through to the interior. You feel that the building is temptingly veiled, not blanketed.

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A quick look at our early morning sweep through the higher ed media on Monday, November 30, 2009. Our guess is that you'll especially like Today's Campus' new Campus Photos section and University Business' 35 Smart Building Ideas.

@ Inside Higher Ed

• Sweetbriar College (VA) Enrollment Decline and Resulting Budget Shortfall
• Nevada System Chancellor Suggests Community Colleges Might Limit Enrollments
• How Do You Change a Culture Without Blaming the People Who Led Before?
• India/USA, Different Higher Ed Challenges
• New Programs: Sustainable Building, Library Science, Architecture

@ The Chronicle of Higher Education

• The Buildings & Grounds Blog: $1.5B in Projects at Stanford; Architecture Firm Sues Ohio State; Reactions to Demise of Berkeley Museum Plan; New Buildings and Projects at New England Conservatory, UCF, Lasell College, and NCSU; Boston College Plans 160,000 sf Academic Building; Roosevelt U; Roosevelt U's Planned 32-Story Building, Classrooms & Housing
• Harsh Economy Drives New Brand of Communication from Top
• Legislation to Allow Foreign Universities Into India May Face New Delay
• Education Secretary Warns Colleges of Limits to Help From Federal Budget
• Crisis Fatigue in a Difficult Economy
• Dos and Don'ts of Task Forces

@ Today's Campus

• Management Roundup: Best paid faculty. Underpaid women. Innovative risk management. An interview with a think tank prez who thinks differently. Celebrity MBA program. New Organizational Design for colleges. And more.
• Global Times Reward Global Study
• Q&S w/Kimberly CLine, President of Mercy College
• Campus Photos of Special Appeal

@ University Business

• 35 Smart Building Ideas
• Pushing ADA Beyond the Limits
• The Role of Colleges in Disaster Relief
• The People's Colleges: No Frills, No Debt, Good Deals

Your thoughts?