MIT Stata Center
Location:
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Architect/Specifier:
Frank Gehry
Characteristically, Frank Gehry's design for the MIT Stata Center matches visually engaging exteriors with carefully considered interior spaces. Inspired in part by an "orangutan village," the design segregated "tree house" offices above and below communal laboratory spaces. From that starting point, Gehry and his team constructed dozens of configurations using physical models. After a long process of perfecting the models, CATIA software generated digital models for building specifications. Nysan shading systems from Hunter Douglas were a particularly distinctive feature of Gehry's final design. Nearly 1,200 custom roller shades were created to fit openings that ranged from rhombuses to trapezoids and various other parallelograms.