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.)

[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.

[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.)

[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.