Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 3.1 Front exterior view of the Broad Institute at Seven Cambridge Center, Kendall Square,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photograph by author, November 2010.)
The Broad Institute, endowed by $100 million gifts from Edythe
and Eli Broad, Harvard, and MIT, lies in the heart of Kendall Square. A
block from Technology Square and standing directly across Main Street
from the MIT biology building and the lopsided ridges of Frank Gehry's
Stata Center, the building at Seven Cambridge Center is the epitome of
twenty-fi rst-century laboratory chic. “7CC,” as those who work there
know it, is eight stories of shimmering glass and metal straddling al-
most the entire block (fi gure 3.1). The vast double-story lobby houses a
custom-designed information center assembled from hundreds of fl at-
screen televisions and clearly visible from the other side of the street. A
small “museum” of sequencing instruments, plush leather couches, and
a serpentine glass staircase, more appropriate to a Californian mansion
than a laboratory, fi ll the remainder of the space. The upper ll oors of
the lab are accessible via a bank of elevators, which can be activated
only by an RFID card. Although some of fl oors have been outfi tted for
specialized purposes (for instance, to house the large array of servers or
the chemical screening robots), the basic pattern of many of the fl oors is
identical. On the east side, and occupying about two-thirds of the fl oor
space, are offi ces and conference rooms. Almost all of these have glass
walls, allowing light to penetrate from the exterior windows into the
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