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A NEW HOME FOR TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION, DESIGN, AND THE ARTS
The MIT Media Laboratory has emerged as a world leader in redefining human-computer interaction in the digital age. Current projects range from "smart" prosthetic limbs, to tools to help children learn, to sociable robots.
To provide a prominent, architecturally distinguished home to house the Media Lab's pioneering research, MIT is undertaking a major expansion: a new, six-floor structure with approximately 163,000 square feet of laboratory, office, and meeting space designed by the Tokyo-based architectural firm of Maki and Associates, led by Fumihiko Maki, a Pritzker Prize-winner known for designs that emphasize openness and interaction.
Together with the existing Wiesner Building (designed by MIT alumnus I. M. Pei), the complex will also house the List Visual Arts Center, the School of Architecture + Planning's Design Lab and Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Department of Architecture's Visual Arts Program, as well as MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies.
A key component of the building will be the Okawa Center for Future Children, established at the Media Lab in 1998 through a $27-million donation from Isao Okawa, the late chairman of CSK Corp. and SEGA Enterprises, Ltd. The Okawa Center is focused on children, learning, and developing nations.
The building will also include several new laboratories and large, attractive meeting and conference spaces for Institute use.
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