MIT's Media Lab To Get $120 Million New BuildingMIT's Media Lab To Get $120 Million New Building

MIT's well-known Media Lab will get a new $120 million research facility with groundbreaking to take place in the spring, according to an announcement from the university.

The 163,000-square-foot, six-story building will feature an open architecture designed to foster the Media Lab's collaborative research approach. The building was designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki.

Co-founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte, the lab spawned one of Negroponte's favorite projects -- the One Laptop Per Child Program, which seeks to provide the world's children with inexpensive computers.

Frank Moss, the lab's director, has hailed the design of the new facility as conducive for the lab's interdisciplinary approach to research.

"An essential ingredient in the lab's distinctive approach to 'open innovation' has been its exploitation of open physical spaces," said Moss, according to a press release Tuesday. "The abundance of such spaces in the new building will be a perfect setting for expanding our research agenda into exciting new realms such as robots that learn from people, and bionics, for taking ideas beyond the demo stage to working prototypes, and finally for strengthening our ties with corporate sponsors."