Academic celebrities such as Noam Chomsky, Ron Rivest, and World Wide Web Consortium founder Tim Berners-Lee also have offices in the building.

A wide main passage running the length of the building on the ground floor is called the Charles M. Vest Student Street, in honor of the former MIT president who died in December 2013.

The monthly "Choose to Re-use" community recycling swap fest, and a weekly fresh produce market are other events regularly held in the Stata Center.

The Forbes Family Cafe is located at the eastern end, and serves coffee and lunch to the public during office hours.

A few selected larger relics of past hacks (student pranks) are now on semi-permanent display, including a "fire hose" drinking fountain, a giant slide rule, and full-size replicas of a cow and a police car that had been placed atop the Great Dome (though not at the same time).

In the ground floor elevator lobby of the Dreyfoos Tower are located a large time capsule box plus informational panels describing MIT's historic Building 20, which the Stata Center has replaced.

A large Digi-Comp II mechanical digital computer which operates with billiard balls is located in the ground floor elevator lobby of the Gates Tower.

Also located there is Flow, a large multicolor art display created by Karl Sims (an MIT alumnus and MacArthur "genius"), which is activated by visitors' movements as detected by a Microsoft Kinect sensor.

Materials change wherever you look: brick, mirror-surface steel, brushed aluminum, brightly colored paint, corrugated metal.

Campbell stated that the cost overruns and delays in completion of the Stata Center are of no more importance than similar problems associated with the building of St Paul's Cathedral.

[7] The 2005 Kaplan/Newsweek guide How to Get into College, which lists twenty-five universities its editors consider notable in some respect, recognizes MIT as having the "hottest architecture", placing most of its emphasis on the Stata Center.

[13] On October 31, 2007,[14] MIT sued[15] architect Frank Gehry and the construction companies, Skanska USA Building Inc. and NER Construction Management, for "providing deficient design services and drawings" which caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, drainage to back up, and falling ice and debris to block emergency exits.

[11] In a 2007 interview, Gehry, whose firm had been paid $15 million for the project, said construction problems were inevitable in the design of complex buildings.