Like all experiments, some elements of the architectural vision work, and others don't. But this new MIT dorm clearly makes a statement.
"According to Time magazine, Stephen Holl is the greatest living American architect... The smoke signals are solid and are made of ordinary unpainted plaster. They are hollow, so you can enter them like caves. Perhaps you nestle inside with a book. Or perhaps you gaze upward to see skylights spilling daylight downward for two stories through the smoke signal's curvy hollow.The smoke signals announce right away that this is the work of an architect, that there's an aesthetic program. They announce, too, that this is a building that consists of something more than private rooms. They hint that it is penetrated by a gulag of shared public places. As indeed it is: It is precisely the goal of Simmons to create spaces that will introduce students to one another and forge them into a community."
Thanks to Laura Kranz
FULL STORY: MIT's new dorm is extraordinary, inside and out
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