Xingyi Zhang_CERN Summary

First of all, I would like to appreciate all the effort that Panos Charitos, along with Sandra Manninger and Matias del Campo contribute to this trip which widens my horizon tremendously. Even since I watched the movie Angels and Demons, I was always curious about how actually this most advanced scientific institute in the world work. Even though the main purpose for this trip is to get to know the structure of this institute and and campus’ environment, it provides me a chance to see this world from a new perspective other than architects’ view with all the conversation with the engineers, scientists and other staffs as well as the sublime view of the most complicated machine that had ever been built by human being.

What surprised me the most is the welcoming gesture of the campus. It is not an enclosed environment. Instead, part of the work of this institute is to popularize the knowledge they have learned and discovered. Although the research of CERN is the almost the frontier of human’s knowledge which seems too far from the daily life of an outsider, the scientists and engineers are all enthusiastic when they are introducing the research they are currently dealing with and the basic information about universe. A lot of way of representation (such as multimedia, painting and physical models) are applied in this campus to explain the abstract concept to the people who have no background of science at all.

Another thing I found from CERN that surprised me is the fact that scientists are just a small part of this institute. There are people such as engineers and artists whose major may or may not be involved with research. There are plenty of cross-disciplinary occasion occurs all around this campus. It might be in a soccer ball club or a music club. It increase the chance of inspiration happening in this campus.

What’s more is the ambition of CERN to dissolve their campus into environment and the recycle of the energy. It is an architectural view of development. It shows the concern of the neighborhood and the long term relation between human and ecology. As Prof. Matias del Campo mentioned, CERN is like the contemporary pyramid. As architects, we can see the bright future of this develop strategy.

Again, many thanks to Panos Charitos, along with Sandra Manninger and Matias del Campo for this trip that expands my horizon of science and knowledge of development of campus.