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.

XIA Wei_CERN Summery

My name is XIA Wei, an architecture graduate student of University of Michigan. I appreciate that Panagiotis Charitos, Sandra Manninger and Matias del Campo offered this interesting course and arranged a perfect academic visit. I was super excited to participate the trip at CERN, and it was a great opportunity to see contemporary physicists’ work with the LHC.

Their research of exploring essence of gravity is really a big thing in architectural field, because structure is generated by gravitation and architectural structure is designed to against gravitation. To know what is gravity is to have more methods of construction. I would like to see there is one day human are not restricted by gravity any more. However, on another side, gravity is a gift of ruling the existing system.

I was surprised when Steve Goldfarb told us there is still about eighty percentages unknow matters in the universe, which means a huge opportunity in material domain. Architecture is stagnated in materials for a long term, although a lot of architects are working on it. From late 18^th century, concrete has occupied the dominant position for about 200 years; with increase of output, steel also joined the architectural material family for more than 100 years.

The experience in the superconducting cables laboratory is very fun. It was a rare chance to learn the properties of superconductor from the experiment in a closer distance, compared with just taking a maglev train. Also, in antimatter laboratory, Michael Doser introduced their work to prove the existence of antimatter. As he said, we know and pretty sure that it is there. Antimatter is a crazy thing, if the theory is true, it can disappear positive matters to create energy. It can be used as an energy source or a weapon. Is there another me in the anti-world?

It was an amazing experience to learn something I never thought about in my normal life, and the critical thinking about the basic science will influence my personal practical experience in architecture. Who is not a future scientist in childhood after all?

William Kenney_CERN Statement

The trip to CERN was an unforgettable experience and left a lasting impression. Everyone that we met was extremely welcoming and willing to teach us all about the different aspects of CERN, the overall goals, and how the entire organization functions on a daily basis. 

Seeing the data control center for the collider, as well as the exceptional opportunity to view it open and see its construction were at the top of my list for memorable experiences. I enjoyed learning about how the experiments work, especially through the cryogenics lab and interactive center. This helped us to understand the scale of how large the experiments are and put everything in perspective. It was fascinating to learn that we only know about 5% of the universe, and we have much more to discover. It will be exciting to see what new knowledge is found from the experiments at CERN. 

This experience at CERN has helped inspire new ideas for our thesis project and will influence how we move forward greatly. I want to thank you again and everyone else at CERN for all that you have done for our group. 

Pierce Allston_CERN Summary

My name is Pierce Allston, and as a student in Architecture at the University of Michigan, it was an honor and a privilege to be wooed and wowed at my time at CERN. I first off want to thank Panos Charitos, along with Sandra Manninger and Matias del Campo for this opportunity to visit, and dive into the inner workings of the CERN Campus, plans for the future, and especially the science behind it all. This allowed us students to start to come to grasps with the gravity the research and experiments being done at CERN.  Part of the reason for our visit was to understand the current campus, its inner-workings, day-to-day operations and layout, along with one-on-one accounts with scientists and researchers alike to get their perspectives.  The hands on experience and visits to the labs and especially detectors was mesmerizing.  Words, and even pictures, cannot describe the scale and aesthetic beauty of it all.  Admittingly as an architecture student, I had little to no knowledge of CERN, let alone the colliders, detectors or even the research being done.  CERN is a different world, one that I am not used to or even comfortable with.  The opportunity to bring in my expertise or architecture and art, I believe, is a monumental one.

There has always been an issue of informing the public and masses, while keeping them engaged; and our speculative design proposal for a new campus is the perfect opportunity. With this goal in mind, just walking through the campus was eye opening.  Anyone can power on Google Earth and view the campus from satellite pictures, and even, when applicable, Google Street View panoramas. But, being there, walking through the maze of the buildings and, if you were courageous enough, the hallways, was a sight to behold. No map can effectively help you navigate. However, the beauty of this was the apparent natural expansion and need-based planning, almost like the veins of a leaf, sprouting out every which-way, with seemingly no master-plan in mind. As a first impression, this was, looking back, a perfect intro to CERN. 

We were lucky enough to visit 3 of the 4 detectors of the LHC, and going down under ground to visit those was something that I’d never forget.  The visit to the Microcosm was a great jumping off point, allowing us to be introduced to the science of it all, as well as a short bit of history as well as current operating mechanics. One of the coolest experiences, aside from visiting the detectors themselves, was our visit to the CCC.  This was imperative, as it allowed us students to begin to grasp the scale of the projects going on at CERN, as well as the needed teamwork and manpower to run things 24/7, even when experiments were not running.  The visit to the CMS and ATLAS experiments, and being able to actually go underground and experience the machines essentially face-to-face was awe inspiring. Again, the breadth of the scale of it all began to come into focus. I think I not only speak for myself, but my classmates, by saying that the quick yet detailed diagrams and introductions to the physics of it all, and what the detectors are actually doing, allowed us to better understand not only the current state of CERN, but as well the future expansion and construction of new experiments.  This was one of the many moments where reading articles and viewing slides online did not do the reality of the matter any justice at all. It was imperative that we experience this first hand to better understand human’s interaction with the machine. 

One of the highlights of the trip, by far, was being able to go down to visit ALICE. The reason for the gravity of this visit, was the opportunity to not only meet with Prof. Tapan Nayak, but being able to get so close to the detector. Visiting ATALS and CMS, we were brought alongside the detectors, although with CMS it was amazing seeing the detector ‘pulled apart’, but with ALICE we were really able to get up close and personal with the detector. Coming from it from the front, and seeing the massive machine parts and scale of it all up close and personal.  Another awesome aspect about the visit was getting a clear shot of looking up one of the gigantic shafts. At the other experiments, we had tried, futilely I might add, to get a straight look up or down the massive concrete shafts that plunged into the earth. Underneath visiting ALICE, we had the experience of being able to look straight up, about 75m or so if I remember correctly.  Again, this enormous scale is what really captivated us. Seeing diagrams of the detector next to the human helps visualize scenarios such as this, but being ‘down in the trenches’ is something totally new. 

Again, being architecture students, all of this was new to us. We’re not used to the ins-and-outs of particle physics, or being able to fully grasp the possibilities of the universe. However, just because you don’t totally understand a subject doesn’t mean you can’t begin to grasp, to understand, or even to engage in it.  This trip allowed us to step into the world of CERN, and learn where we as architects can take part, and participate.  Meeting with engineers, physicists, cosmologists, and everyone else allowed us to step into a new world where we can make a positive difference.  What the people at CERN and those around the world who engage with the statistics and data offer, is momentous. Part of the role of architecture is to engage the user with its environment, both the users who work at CERN as well as the world of people who want to learn about CERN. None of this vision that we gathered during our visit would have been possible from just looking through the computer screen.  This vision was brightened and expanded thanks to the hands-on experience that we were able to have. Thanks again to Panos, who set up our meetings, demonstrations, visits, and meetings. I believed all of our projects that we have been working on gained new life, and new paths for design.  Seeing is believing.

Xia_CERN_impression

Superconductor Lab

Superconductor Magnetic Field

Frozen Ice on Superconductor

abhirams_CERN_impression

Destruction, religion, and meaning.

James Howe_CERN Impressions

Stonehenge 3100/2500 BC

Pierce Allston_CERN Impressions

GE Carousel of Progress, 1964 NY World's Fair

Allison Ford_CERN Impressions

2017-02-20

Allison Ford_CERN Impressions

William Kenney_CERN Impressions

HOW CAN I CONNECT SCIENCE TO ARCHITECTURE IN CERN?

CERN Impressions

sdonnelly_cern_project

Campus of the Future Colloquium

This year's presidential's colloquium is looking at projects that reinvent the Campus.
Universities operate on model of education that has changed very little for centuries even as their role in society and society itself has evolved around them. Formerly institutions of the elite, a university education is now essential for much of the population, but rising costs, shifting economic realities, emerging technologies and unprecedented access to information have fundamentally challenged the purpose of the university. It’s time to redesign the university experience around the needs of 21st century learners and the role of the university in 21st century society — to reinvent the idea of the university itself. Who better to do that than students themselves?
Find more information information by following this link.

James Howe_CERN experience

Overall I thought the faculty and staff of CERN did an excellent job at making us all feel welcome and well accommodated. Many thanks to our guide for the week, Panos, who always had an agenda planned for our day! 

Most of our time at CERN we were lectured to about the various laws of physics that have been so far been discovered, followed by more brief conversations about what is currently unclear and in the experimental zone of our understanding. In addition to these many conversations and lectures about particle physics we were given the rare opportunity to enter underground into the experimental room in which particles are being collided together and studied for their reactions. These rooms are enormous caverns around one hundred meters underground, spanning a length width and depth of fifty by forty by forty meters, depending on the experiment. These rooms house the worlds most intensely dense and technologically advanced machines known as the detectors. These machines are the devices that record the information produced from the collision of different particles after they have traveled around the large circular collider. 

Everyone who works at CERN has an agenda to be productive and it is apparent that this system has catalyzed their growth in a lot of ways. However, I would like to unpack this because I think there are subtle setbacks that actually hamper the potential of such a campus. To be solely productive is almost always accompanied by sacrifices in other areas or departments. This is an apparent re-occurrence at CERN in which most of the faculty will agree that the majority of funding should be directed toward the production and maintenance of the collider tunnel, detectors, and magnets. Some of this mentality to take care of the machines and put the technology before the campus and the people it houses has degraded the way in which people experience CERN, both as a visitor and also as a working resident. The current campus does not keep workers in permanent housing but rather acts as a daily work-site for the scientist and a hotel for temporary visitors such as ourselves.

I am extremely grateful to have experienced so many rare opportunities, and having clearly been exposed to and invaluable amount of information I realize the significance of our visit. The new Future Circular Collider is a project which should look gain knowledge by looking toward various fields whose expertise deals with human needs as well as machines. It is an important relationship that we need to work on to better understand how they can begin to compliment each other rather than oppose.