Problems
When the Green Building was first opened, the isolated prominence of the building and its relative proximity to the Charles River basin increased wind speeds in the high open archway at its base, preventing people from entering or leaving the building through the hinged main doors on windy days, necessitating the use of a tunnel connecting to the other buildings. Large wood panels were temporarily erected in the open concourse to block the wind, and revolving doors were later installed at the ground floor entries to ameliorate this problem somewhat. Several windows cracked, and at least one large pane popped out on upper stories at least in part due to the effects of wind, eventually requiring all the windows to be replaced. A few years later, a similar-appearing problem was repeated in Boston's John Hancock Tower located in Back Bay across the river, a 60-story skyscraper which happened to be designed by the same architectural firm.
It is incorrectly rumored that Alexander Calder's monumental sculpture The Big Sail, was situated in front of the building to deflect the high winds. The sculpture is located too far from the building entryway to have much effect on wind velocities there.
Read more about this topic: Green Building (MIT)
Famous quotes containing the word problems:
“The problems of all of humanity can only be solved by all of humanity.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.”
—Julius J. Epstein, U.S. screenwriter, Philip Epstein, screenwriter, Howard Koch, screenwriter, and Michael Curtiz. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)
“The mother’s and father’s attitudes toward the child correspond to the child’s own needs.... Mother has the function of making him secure in life, father has the function of teaching him, guiding him to cope with those problems with which the particular society the child has been born into confronts him.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)