Cambridge, Massachusetts
MIT Vassar Street Residence Hall by Michael Maltzan Architecture, Inc. with DiMella Shaffer Associates, Inc. for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) takes comfort as its guiding principle, accommodating a range of spaces that can be flexibly adapted by its residents.
Vassar Street Residence Hall was designed to seamlessly merge the life of its residents with the surrounding industrial context and the larger MIT community.
For its sustainable design that also takes care of user comfort, it has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Awards Honorable Mention by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The building is organized along a horizontal line, mirroring both the linear nature of the site and the adjacent railroad tracks.
Vassar Street’s brick façade references the aesthetic of the industrial neighborhood surrounding it, but without mimicry.
The linearity of the building is interrupted by a series of plazas and courtyards that not only ensure more democratic access to light and air for the residents but also form a dynamic indoor/outdoor recreational experience.
Formally, the voids of the courtyard produce the dorm’s “clusters,” allowing the resident population to be organized into more intimate groups so that–in addition to the resident population at large–the students can form and manage a more close-knit community.
Carefully orchestrated spaces and programs offer students the privacy of an individual dorm room, the shared social experience of eating in a large dining hall or relaxing in the main lounge, and the more intimate social activities like the yoga studio or clusters to allow students to curate their own experiences.
To foster the well-being of its residents, the building was designed to maximize comfortability, recreation, and health.
Comfortability was paramount in configuring the dorm rooms and common spaces.
Each dorm room has large windows to provide access to light, is acoustically separated from adjacent rooms and the corridor, and mechanically independent with controls for heating and cooling adjustable by the individual user.
Common areas utilize large windows and glazing extents to maximize the amount of natural light entering the spaces, with various points of access to the exterior courtyards, including a private social courtyard where students can gather outside away from the movement of people and cars along Vassar Street.
The building offers a wide range of recreational activities that motivate positive choices, whether that be through healthy eating in the dining hall, using the fitness and yoga facilities, or taking advantage of the many lounges and relaxation spaces to stimulate social interaction that is so critical to underpinning demanding academic experiences like those at MIT.
The building utilizes a number of strategies for achieving the project’s sustainability goals, such as a high performing envelope that reduces energy usage and achieves passive survivability for the regional climate.
The prefabricated, panelized system is highly insulated and extremely effective at maintaining comfortability that supplements the high efficiency mechanical and electrical systems in place, which includes energy recovery units, valence heating and cooling systems in the dorm, electric appliances and occupancy/vacancy sensors for both lighting and temperature controls.
Project: MIT Vassar Street Residence Hall
Architects: Michael Maltzan Architecture, Inc.
Executive Architects: DiMella Shaffer Associates, Inc.
General Contractor: Walsh Brothers, Inc.
Client: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Photographers: John Horner