Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
`Sidewalk Seminars' Set A series of "sidewalk seminars" to explain the construction work for the new biology building has been announced by Francis A. Lawton, project manager and assistant to the senior vice president. Mr. Lawton will meet interested members of the community at 1pm tomorrow, September 19, and each Tuesday and Thursday thereafter at the same time, on the sidewalk separating the construction site from the Landau Building, the chemical engineering building. "We've had lots of questions about the work," Mr. Lawton said. Some of the interest has come from off campus. For example, two Wentworth Institute of Technology civil engineering faculty members met recently with Mr. Lawton for a tour of the project and plan to bring their students to the site for a "real world" look at what they are studying. Because of special site characteristics, some unique techniques are being employed, Mr. Lawton said. For example, those large, silver- colored tubes recently placed along the bottom of the 400-by-110-foot excavation are called cross-lot braces. Their role is to take the pressure off the steel plates that form a wall along the sides of the hole. Work began on the $70-million project in April. Occupancy is expected about the end of 1993. Mr. Lawton will talk more about those braces and answer any other questions at the first of his seminars Thursday, September 19.