The Evolving MIT Campus Hack

[As it turns out, this was a final project for the class 4.301 Intro to Visual Arts. Yes, you can get academic credit at MIT for doing this kind of thing—it's neither the first nor the last 4.301 project to bear an uncanny resemblance to a hack.]

MIT is in a constant state of construction. Dorms, departmental buildings, renovations—for the last ten years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has expanded its collection of new and weird modern architecture at an incredible rate. They call it the "Evolving MIT Campus." In mid-February 2006, MIT hackers decided that the next improvement MIT buildings needed was a little greenspace. All over campus, they put down little rectangles of Astroturf. They were protected from harmful foot-traffic by rope fences (of the style used to protect various patches of lawn from shortcut-taking passerby) and marked with signs explaining the rationale behind the 10 installations. Here is the text of the signs:

"...the final building project that MIT is undertaking recognizes the importance of an aesthetic campus. The new landscape renovation intitiative seeks to double the square footage of greenery on its concrete-clad grounds. The first phase of construction began this month, with intial seeding points positioned in key locations.

'The preliminary pieces deployed already increase the campus's greenery by 0.0005%, and is improving the oxygen flow in Cambridge,' said MIT President Susan Hockfield. It is my hope that this architectural metamorphosis will significantly update the look and feel of MIT and help usher in a vibrant new era of campus life.

'However,' Hockfield added, 'because of the fragility of the initial patches, we ask that students take care not to step on the grass. Not that you usually can anyway.'

'MIT is quite simply being remade as a campus,' said Robert McCown, from the Boston Globe. 'No longer will the 'Tute be compared to a 'factory' or be labeled 'damn ugly' by the reneowned users of collegeconfidential.com.'

'Verdure really matters a great deal in an academic setting,' commented Robert Silbey, MIT's Dean of Science. 'Just look at the Ivy Leagues. We hope that this attempt to beautify the campus will nurture the imagination of our students and researchers by allowing them easy access to spaces to frolic in. And we believe that the presence of greenery in unexpected places will pleasantly surprise the community.'

The construction project is expected to run $250 million over budget, and be completed in May 2014. A reception for the community will be held at that time."