Koch Biology Building, 1991

The Koch Biology Building (Building 68; not to be mistaken with the Koch Institute around the corner on Main Street) occupies the eastern side of Hockfield Court quad, stretching across Ames Street and connected to the Landau Building to the south by a suspended skybridge.

Limestone-clad piers project from the facade between each vertical column of windows, creating a rhythmic order across the building’s surface. The piers, which begin at the second floor and extend to the roof, serve as enclosures for the exhaust ducts used in labs. The lobby is bound in glass, allowing temporary installations and public artworks such as James Melchert’s mural Coming to Light (1994) to be seen from the outside. 

Goody, Clancy, and Associates (established in 1955, and now known as Goody Clancy) is a Boston-based firm founded by Marvin Goody (1929­–1980) and Richard Hamilton (b. 1957)—both professors in the Department of Architecture at MIT working on building materials research. John Clancy (1930–­2004), one of Goody’s students at MIT, joined the firm in its early days and became a partner in 1960. One of its earliest and most famous projects was the Monsanto House of the Future in 1957, a shrine to modern plastics and the product of a joint effort between Monsanto, MIT, and Walt Disney Imagineering. The firm is recognized for housing, civic, and institutional projects, including mixed-income housing developments Tent City and Harbor Point in Boston, the Massachusetts Transportation Office Building, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. In recent years, Goody Clancy has also undertaken a number of preservation and reuse projects for state and federal agencies in Washington, DC, New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts.