This one's for the experimentalists

[kaberett]

I am increasingly convinced that the reason labs are so often located in the basement has nothing to do with technical reasons (weight of equipment; minimising vibrations; etc) and is instead 100% concerned with convincing you that you will never see the sky again.

(Lab is 15degC and falling. I have at least an hour to go. Group pub outing started twenty-five minutes ago. And it is still the case that I really love my job.)

Comments

[ceb]

Ahaha, try studying optics. Even the first floor labs are windowless black rooms with the lights off. And the light-sensitive chemicals can only be handled in windowless orange-lit rooms.

It was after that that I decided a view was essential to my sanity. In the meantime, try covering the walls in pictures of the outside, it helps.

[highlyeccentric]

USyd has a policy of keeping their Arts postgraduates belowground. It was exciting the day they built us a new hotdesk lab with WINDOWS. Windows! (Finishing students get an attic instead. And dedicated desks. They're training us into low expectations.)

[sorrillia]

Sometimes it's the grad students who are photosensitive. My lab is the only pchem lab on the first floor here, because we don't actually have any technical reasons to be in the basement. We all keep our blinds closed and blackout curtains (I don't know why we have those: we don't need them.) down almost all the time, anyway.

[ceb]

Our office spent all last year with the blinds closed. But we've had a change of students since then... so when none of them were in the office at the start of the year I opened all the blinds. No-one's closed any of them yet so I think that might be a win :-)

[cadenzamuse]

My second lab had windows, but they were tiny thin arrow-slits of things with a wire mesh set into the glass. They were designed to convince you that actually you are living in prison, and the sun is an illusion meant to torture you into thinking there could be a world outside the glass.

[hilarita]

This means you can contain the Dangerous Science (TM) if it goes wrong!

Honest :)

[vass]

I had to get some imaging done in December, and decided that the radiology wing of the hospital was in the basement to make the whole experience more doomy.

[kaberett]

WHY DO THEY DO THIS TO US. WHY.

[kaberett]

no that's why you keep the hydrogen cylinders in the attic (trufax!)

[kaberett]

This one has lots of windows between rooms, and *one* of the rooms has an external window that looks out into a dank little alleyway with tall buildings on either side and a flywalk directly above cutting out what light remains. However, there's no line of sight from where I do most of my work to said window...

[kaberett]

HAH. Caltech actually does something similar with its first-year postgrads in earth sciences - they all of them live in a crowded little den in the first basement in first year, and then get to go somewhere with LIGHT once they're big grown-ups with a project of their very own.

[naath]

Our labs are in the attic; I think because that makes it easier to keep people who are not meant to be in them out of them.

[nanila]

I always thought it was because architects figured the Alien film sets were modeled on reality, and that scientists would get confused by environments that hadn't been extracted from the recesses of HR Giger's mind.

(I concur that it is possible I've spent too much time thinking about this. In basements.)

[nanila]

Our building has a similar approach to the basements. There are no signs indicating their existence, not even in the stairwells, and only some of the lifts will take you to them.

[kaberett]

(I concur that it is possible I've spent too much time thinking about this. In basements.)

SO GLAD IT'S NOT JUST ME

[silveradept]

Having had my share of classes in windowless lecture halls, I think it's supposed to instill the same reverence as going to church would, just without any pretty art to look at.

[kaberett]

Churches do so have windows (at least the ones I went/go to).

(I think my most disconcerting lecture theatre was the one with a TOXIC POLAR BEAR SKIN SPREADEAGLED ACROSS ONE ENTIRE WALL.)

[silveradept]

The ones I went to did, as well, but they always had stained glass art that seemed to only let a little of the outside light inside.

[swaldman]

In my little mini-campus, the taught masters students get glorious views across hills and sea, and PhD students get to look at a brick wall 2feet from the window.