RETHINKING EXPANSION
Faced with the possibility of permanent transitions that will fill much of the currently available space, science departments and centers on the Cambridge campus may be forced to reevaulate plans for future expansion.
The decision to centralize SCRB—a department that has traditionally been dispersed across the Cambridge and Medical School campuses—into a unified space in Fairchild will force the departing MCB professors to join other members of the department in the Biological Laboratories and the Northwest Science Building.
MCB professors moving into the Bio Labs will occupy laboratories alongside other faculty members in the department, as well as much of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
“It puts pressure on space,” said OEB Chair Andrew A. Biewener.
But he noted that space will only become an issue if OEB is faced with the opportunity to expand—a scenario made increasingly unlikely with the financial crisis.
“I’m not sure there’s going to be a lot of growth in FAS anyways,” Biewener said.
Administrators of the FAS Center for Systems Biology and the Center for Brain Sciences—early tenants of the recently finished Northwest building—said that their new neighbors from MCB will occupy space that could become relevant to the centers in the long term. But for now, they added, the space is going unused.
“A full house is always more fun than too much empty space,” said Bodo Stern, CSB director of research affairs, who added that the center will still have space for two to three more faculty members.
But Stern said that additional faculty searches down the line will depend upon available space—and the future of Allston plays a major role in predicting the amount of space that will be open.
“That is definitely going to be something that affects System Biology in the long term,” Stern said about the uncertain future of the Science Complex.
—Staff Writer Sofia E. Groopman can be reached at segroopman@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff Writer Noah S. Rayman can be reached at nrayman@fas.harvard.edu.