Beaver Works is a joint program of MIT and Lincoln Laboratory, which was established in 1951 by MIT and the U.S. Air Force to build the nation's first air-defense system. Launched in the midst of the Cold War, Lincoln Lab now occupies a sprawling complex of buildings in Lexington, Massachusetts, about 10 miles from MIT's Cambridge campus, and develops technology for space control, air and missile defense, cyber security, and other areas of national defense. Beaver Works, meanwhile, offers MIT students the chance to work on thesis-type projects with MIT professors and researchers from Lincoln Lab. The students spend one year designing and building technologies like unmanned aerial vehicles (“drones” to most of us) and fuel cells for unmanned submarines. The program's name refers to MIT's furry mascot and echoes the moniker for the government-funded Skunk Works program that developed such aircraft as the U-2 and the F-22 Raptor.

Shin took a risk by hiring Merge, a young firm headed by Elizabeth Whittaker that had designed restaurants, bars, and residences aimed mostly at professionals in their 20s and 30s. The creative tension between Whittaker's contemporary aesthetic and Beaver Works' academic roots generated an intriguing design. “We wanted it to have a garage-like feeling,” says Shin, but Whittaker made it more refined, with sharp graphics, clean lines, and sleek steel-framed tables and work surfaces. At the same time, Whittaker's interest in fabrication dovetailed nicely with Beaver Works' emphasis on learning by making.

“In our work, we try to test out new ways of putting things together,” says Whittaker. Custom fabrication and unusual applications of common elements are often key strategies. For example, she used woven cotton straps to define partitions in a restaurant and created a wall made of 40,000 wooden dowels for a loft. For Beaver Works, she designed built-in seating made of radiata pine plywood, a system of mobile storage carts, and a teaching area that can be divided into two classrooms with a movable partition. Tables and chairs sit on wheels, so they can move too.

Shin had originally figured he would need 10,000 square feet for the project. But the place he ended up renting—just part of a floor in a tech office building—is half that size, requiring Whittaker to design spaces to accommodate multiple uses or change configuration.

Expressing the dual nature of Beaver Works as a program for transmitting knowledge and exploring national defense technologies, Whittaker's design creates a fine balance between transparency and enclosure. From the generic building corridor that leads to the facility, visitors first see a large photograph of Lincoln Lab's main complex in Lexington and the Beaver Works' logo emblazoned on an angled wall. Vertical slots of glass in the wall provide peeks into the space beyond. Enter through a glass door and you find yourself in a lounge punctuated by a freestanding counter with stools and a sink. Built-in plywood seating topped with cushions and a pair of suspended light fixtures made of wood and felt give the space a welcoming feeling. A wall of glass looks onto a workspace, creating the illusion of openness. Anyone can grab a cup of coffee and sit in the lounge or head to the adjacent classrooms, but only students, faculty, and people with permission can cross over to the laboratory workspace on the other side of the glass partition.

In the lab area, the movable storage carts can dock along one wall or sidle up to raw-steel rolling desks. An angular plywood pod with upholstered benches provides a semi-private place for people to meet, work, or even take a nap (as one student was doing when this writer visited). Color activates and unifies the various parts of the project, with school bus yellow providing a sharp contrast to plywood surfaces, polished-concrete floors, and dark-gray ceilings. A faceted ceiling in the classrooms at one end of the project snakes along an edge of the lounge and into the lab, connecting the three major areas. A separate prototyping shop equipped with 3-D printers and other tools is a short walk down the corridor from the main Beaver Works space.

Many new workplaces created for fast-growing tech companies feel like corporate clichés, generic in their deployment of whimsical colors, beanbag chairs, and bleacher stairs. Beaver Works may have a slightly goofy name and lots of stuff that moves—however, it's anything but a playground. It's a place for learning and making that appears bigger than it really is and more open than security allows.

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