If you’ll link over to the construction blog, you’ll see a wonderful post by Meredith, on the need for common spaces. The concerns that she has synthesized are shared by all of us. Every time, we loose another small bit of common break-out space, I feel a loss as far as the original vision for the Institute.
And yet, we continue to lose such common spaces at a fairly constant rate.
The pressures which create this chronic loss are of course obvious: our scientific program is successful. Success leads to greater need for programmed space–which in turn leads to the pruning of the open spaces.
What to do?
Well, I think that the message about our need for open spaces will definitely be communicated to the design build teams–the plan is for them to be reading these blogs also. So ideally the new space will add some break-out areas. Second, I would be willing to discuss with all the possibility of using our current break out space more efficiently–for example, I heard the comment about the food vending machine in the kitchen loud and clear.
Finally, let’s really think about the Great Room. Maybe it’s time to open our minds to different ways of using that space.
Cheers,
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 