MIT Stata Center Student Street

 

Client: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Role: Planning

Status: Completed

Fact: Students were engaged in the planning process in order to give them a sense of "ownership" of the space. 

The Student Street in the Ray and Maria Stata Center is a network of public spaces that winds through the ground floor of the building, encouraging social interaction and the exchange of ideas. The decision that the Student Street should be “owned” by the students themselves led David Silverman, as part of the Stata Center Project Management Team [SCPMT], to involve them in the design process through open forums where feedback was gathered and incorporated into the program and design.

Further feedback was obtained from service providers in the space, such as the MIT Museum, Information Services, Food Services, and MIT Libraries, which helped focus the program requirements even more. The need for a unique operational model for this complex space led to the creation of an operational “map” which illustrated the building’s diverse usage patterns and helped communicate clearly to the clients how the Stata Center would function.