What can it mean to observe an observatory?
Inspired by a yearning to hop the fence and climb inside the telescopes at MIT's Haystack Observatory Complex in Westford, MA, the Haystack Observatory Museum allows visitors to get up close to the telescopes, learn about their historic discoveries, and enjoy views of the forest and hiking trails without disturbing the sensitive instruments.
View of Haystack Telescope radome from the trailhead
Site Analysis
The diagram describes the various scientific developments at MIT's Haystack Observatory Complex, both physically and chronologically. The lower third of the drawing captures the landscape in plan and section, while the remaining area is devoted to mapping the history of the site's seven telescopes. The timeline includes periods of renovation and images of discoveries made by the various telescopes.
Site Analysis Diagram (Temperature data from Ladybug for Grasshopper; drawn in Rhinoceros3D, Illustrator, Photoshop)
Relative Scale Studies illustrate the awesome scale of the Haystack equipment compared to the human form.
Scale study: Millstone Hill Telescope
Scale study: Haystack and HAX radomes
FORM-FINDING
MISA steerable telescope at Haystack rotates with a built-in observation room along a circular track. There is something humorous about an archetypal small white house sitting within the telescope’s monstrous metal scaffolding. This unique building typology, in its juxtaposition of the familiar and the foreign, highlights the strange beauty and enormous scale of the telescopes. A series of "boolean" collages combining human-scale buildings with Haystack telescopes inspired the final design of classrooms and gathering spaces embedded in a steel space frame structure.
MISA Steerable Telescope
Experimental collage: Telescope booleans
As shown in the diagram below, the history of scientific progress at Haystack inspired a formal logic for the museum's plan. Boundaries of the space frame fall along years the Haystack Telescope and the HAX Radar were upgraded. Axes pointing to locations of other observatories in the Event Horizon Array and IVS, global networks of synchronized radio observatories that work in unison with Haystack telescopes to observe radio sources.
According to this framework, if there is any significant future modification to these two telescopes or another is built, the museum may grow. Over time, like the trees that surround it, it can expand outward and upward toward the stars.
Main Level Plan
Top Level Plan
Circulation
Entering Haystack Telescope facility from main road
View of HAX Radome, observation deck from upper balcony
Section C - Haystack Telescope Observation Deck
Section A - Tunnel and southeast viewing platform
Section B - HAX Telescope Observation Deck