Lin’s concept is a building that gradually rises along Massachusetts Avenue, with a main entry and an interior courtyard filled with trees and meandering pathways.
“I wanted this to feel not like an isolated island, but something penetrable for everyone from MIT to walk around,’’ said Mark Fishman, the president of the company’s Institutes for Biomedical Research.
“We want people to mix there just as they would at a university.’’
The Lin and other buildings were approved by the Cambridge Planning Board Tuesday night. Novartis has already begun site work on the property and expects to complete the complex in 2015.
Lin, who came to prominence for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982, said she wanted the Novartis complex to improve the connection between Central Square and the Charles River by filling the now-barren strip of concrete with more active uses and landscaping.
The facade of her building on Massachusetts Avenue will be covered with the same type of light-gray granite that was used to construct Quincy Market at Faneuil Hall and many of the bridges in the area.
“The idea is to have the New England stone wall come out of the landscape and gently float up’’ to balance the generous amounts of glass used elsewhere in the complex, Lin said. “We’re trying to create something almost more campuslike in scope and feel. It’s very noncorporate.’’
The new Novartis property is one of many efforts by global biotechnology firms to build stronger connections to MIT to improve recruiting and research collaboration. Novartis itself already has several well-established ventures, one a $65 million, 10-year deal with MIT for research into revolutionizing the process of manufacturing medicines. Another 10-year pact is with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on cancer research.
