DMSE Lab Construction on the Infinite Should Finish by Dec.
Sometime soon, probably early next year, passersby in the Infinite Corridor will look through glass windows to see a scanning acoustic microscope and cryogenic probe station in the Department for Materials Science and Engineering’s new Laboratory for Advanced Materials (LAM), currently under construction at the intersection of Buildings 4 and 8.
But for now, a partition of drywall juts into the hall space, narrowing the Infinite where the lab will be.
The construction project started in June 2009 and is currently scheduled to finish in December 2009.
Reactions to the obstruction are varied. Edward J. Rodriguez ’13 said, “It’s an inconvenience, but it’s not a major one.”
Claudia J. Richardson ’12 said, “I feel like it’s a good thing for Course 3, but I wish that they had been smarter in planning it and tried to finish it before the school year started.”
At least one person seems to have found the construction to be a bit more irritating: Over the summer, someone added an “E” to a poster on the construction site marking the future site of “LAM,” making the sign read “LAME.”
Project manager Varin Ang said MIT Facilities was trying to keep noise levels to a minimum during construction hours, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.: “We don’t want to interrupt a lot of activities during the day,” he said. “Classes start around 9, so we have from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. to do a lot of work, and we try to make less noise during the day.” No drilling or hammering takes place after 9 a.m.
When construction finishes, the intersection on the Infinite with Building 4 will be roomier, Ang said, “so that you don’t have to be standing in the corridor to look into the lab.”