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CREATING LIFE FROM A SPONGE: THE PRE-HISTORY OF SIMMONS HALL 2. EARLY CHALLENGES  We knew from early on that our task would be a difficult one. Some challenges were already waiting for us when the group was formed. The first challenge also happened to be the reason why Simmons Hall was being built in the first place. To make a long story short: In the fall of 1997, a freshman at an MIT fraternity house died of alcohol poisoning. This precipitated a chain of events that I won't go into describing-- some of you might know the story anyway-- and resulted in MIT changing its policy on whether or not freshmen are allowed to live in fraternities. In August 1998, just after I arrived on campus as a freshman, the president of MIT announced that starting in the fall of 2001, all freshmen would be required to live in dorms. Because MIT did not have enough housing to handle this increase-- about 300 freshmen moved into fraternities or independent living groups each year-- MIT needed to build a new dorm. Thus, "Residence 2001" was born.  For obvious reasons, the "freshmen-on-campus" decision was extremely unpopular among students, particularly the approximately one-third of students who lived in fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups. Students in dormitories did not care for it either, since most students appreciated having the ability to choose their living environment. A student crusade of sorts had built up following the decision, with many people feeling that it was an attempt by the administration to take away students' very freedom and bring them under closer oversight and control by the administration. And this new dorm would be the concrete, living, breathing manifestation of the MIT administration's attempt to destroy everything that once was special and great about student life at MIT. Needless to say, there was not a high level of support for the new dorm from within the community it was intended to serve. As another complication, the actual program development for the building itself was already underway when the Founders Group was formed. The MIT Planning Office, working with consultant Richard Dober and a group of student leaders, had already gone through the process of space planning, which is essentially a description of what is supposed to go into a building in terms of numbers-- x square feet of the building will be a, y square feet of the building will be b, and so on. Many of the innovations that people talk about with regards to Simmons Hall-- the large amount of common space, the large dining hall area and night cafe, the visiting scholar apartments-- were developed as part of this process long before the architects were ever involved. Since we on the Founders Group did not play any role in this process, it was somewhat difficult at times to work with and advise the architectural program, especially in situations where we found that our views were not the same as the space planning team. Yet another large complication, which in many ways would turn out to be the largest, was that before the Founders Group was formed, MIT selected Steven Holl to be the new dorm's designer. Normally, one would want the formation of a client group to precede-- even assist with-- the selection of an architect. But there were a few differences in this case-- first, the timetable was short and decisions needed to be made, and second, MIT's leadership already had a strong idea of what it wanted. Steven Holl, known for his innovative and unconventional designs, was at the time already one of the most famous architects in the world. When MIT hired Holl, it was clear that it was looking for an unique, "signature" piece for the campus that would attract attention from the design community and the world at large. According to MIT's leadership, hiring Holl to design a new dormitory represented MIT's renewed commitment to investing in student life and student housing as specified by the aforementioned Task Force on Student Life and Learning. I had heard that Steven Holl didn't have any experience in designing student housing and had designed very little housing at all. But I also heard that he was supposed to be a genius, so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at first. copyright Jeffrey C. Roberts, 2004 |