The New Microsoft Research Building

[ewx]

This has been going up on Station Road for some time now, and now seems to be in use:

They have what seems to be a monolith with a hole in:

Also this curious construction:

Anyone care to guess what the significance of 1911-2011 is?

Comments

[fanf]

1911-2011: dates of Great Eastern House, perhaps? Do I remember the name correctly?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

This guy says it was constructed in the 1950s (http://brianhuman.co.uk/wp/2011/04/gt-eastern-house-rip/), this book agrees (http://books.google.com/books?id=2gCn3PVBX20C&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=%22great+eastern+house%22+1956&source=bl&ots=wNhIeEg_kU&sig=xCTKqFDDdVDQTh4iPRSuYiGUaEM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gcMgUdiZIKeg4gTT6YGADQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22great%20eastern%20house%22%201956&f=false) and so does this (https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/sites/www.cambridge.gov.uk/files/docs/Station%20area%20appraisal.pdf). None of these explain the significance of 1911 though.
I suppose there could have been an earlier building of the same name on the same site.

[fanf]

I thought the old villa next to the concrete monstrosity was the earlier building of the same name. Bit hard to check now it is a hole in the ground...

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. If you step through the hole in the monolith, do you come out somewhere else?

[sweh.livejournal.com]

The hole is a bug; it'll be patched in the next release.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Just so long as they don't round off the corners of the rectangle at the same time - Apple have a patent on that.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

No. Unless somewhere else is a Cambridge so subtly different that I haven't found the difference yet.

[bjh21.livejournal.com]

It certainly ought to be in use: I was exploring their old building a couple of weeks ago, and MSR definitely aren't doing much there any more.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Just as well, really - you UCS chaps are meant to be cramming in there with unseemly speed.