Building Brings Together Computer and Intelligence Sciences with Linguistics and Philosophy
The new Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) may help redefine the ways in which researchers relate to each other and to the spaces they inhabit. Drawing on successful functional concepts from other buildings on the MIT campus, while taking a new approach to organizing those functions, the new Center aims to encourage vertical movement and a sense of neighborhood for researchers long accustomed to remaining more or less ensconced in one wing of one floor.

Strict but Realistic Deadlines are Critical
State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook has developed specific techniques for gutting and renovating high-end research space in a way that minimizes disruption by maximizing efficiency.

Shared Services and Interactive Spaces Encourage Interdisciplinary Research
In April 2002, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif., received a $27.7-million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to create a Center for Analysis of Higher Brain Function, an imaging facility for researchers studying neural functions and the relationships between brain cell activity and behavior. This interdisciplinary center--which integrates projects in neural science, chemistry, engineering, physics, and the social sciences--will find its home in a new facility designed with interdisciplinary collaboration in mind: the Broad Center for the Biological Sciences.

California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology recently opened its first new building of the 21st Century. The Broad Center for the Biological Sciences is a $61-million facility that houses up to 13 research groups ranging in disciplines from biology and chemistry to engineering, each focusing on the biological sciences.

National Research Council Canada Establishes New Aerospace Tech Center
The National Research Council Canada will open the Aerospace Manufacturing Technology Centre (AMTC) at the University of Montreal in spring 2004. The new 70,000-sf manufacturing R&D facility will operate as part of the Institute for Aerospace Research and conduct joint collaborative research with industry and university partners. When fully operational it will be Canada's foremost center for aerospace manufacturing technology development.

Facility Serves as Demo Site for Ultra High-Resolution Electron Microscope
The refitted Science and Engineering South building at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has recently become a demonstration site for the JEOL 2010F Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM)--currently the highest resolution 200 kilovolt electron microscope in the world. Fitting such a sensitive instrument into a campus in downtown Chicago presented significant challenges to the project team.

Lessons for Ensuring Successful Delivery and Installation
While Charlie Brown of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) installed the University's recently purchased STEM, he faced a significant learning curve and limited information from other users since the UIC installation was the first in North America for this model.