Honor Award
Col l ege a n d Uni v ersi ty Desi gn
Reed Hilderbrand
project name.
location.
MIT’s North Court
Cambridge, Massachusetts
MIT has long occupied the forefront of technological
innovation, and its Infinite Corridor and Main Group Courts
have been equally seen as icons of American campus
design. The new North Court project completes the promise
of these combined achievements while joining campus
and city together. As a place of occupation and dynamic
crossing ground and as a distinct complement to MIT’s
original orientation toward the Charles, the project facilitates
an enterprising and overlapping future: the research campus and its larger neighborhood as connective urban realm.
The court was conceived as a fully framed, open field
condition that supports significant campus rituals while
carrying everyday desire-line crossing paths. The framing
edges of the quad became intensively occupied passages —
each employing a different character related to connecting
points and programmatic adjacencies. Where the promenades
intersect with Main Street, plazas capture and filter pedestrian and bicycle traffic into the network of campus paths.
Finally, the quad’s lawn and crossing paths cover a massive
assembly of storm water galleys for storage and infiltration,
resulting in near-zero outflow to the city storm system.
The new North Court project evolves and reconciles all
preceding design expressions and brings coherence and
connectivity to the entire ensemble.
2013 Boston Society of Landscape Architects Fieldbook
59