MIT Hacks, Pranks, and Other Forms of Guerilla Architecture

When LaVerde's Market at MIT was taken over by the Boston University-owned 660 Corporation, the new owners immediately made a number of changes that were quite unpopular with the student body including the end of 24 hour service and the removal of the comment/suggestion box—the latter being remarkable in that the owner or manager would traditionally take the time to answer each comment or suggestion and post the annotated note on a bulletin board for all to see. In protest, a number of students covered the entire front windows of the store with Post-It notes on which they wrote their own comments.

Hackers hung a banner reading "Happy Mid-Autumn" from the ledge around the ceiling of Lobby 7 to celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday, October 6 2006. (The banner was hung just before dawn on Saturday, October 7, 2006) The Festival celebrates the end of the summer harvest as well as the moon being at its fullest and brightest. A traditional Chinese mid-autumn lantern was later strung next to the banner. Hackers said that the decorations were meant to "bring joy to people."

A large banner featuring the grinning visage of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat character appeared in MIT's Lobby 7 for the release of the film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."