School of Design
Facility Improvements Advance Education
written by
Joseph Lyons
The School of Design has been working on numerous facility improvements throughout the school that will advance the act of designing and prototyping while providing easier access to technology.
In Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall, this semester will see the opening of the Spatial Experience Lab (SxL) and the Electronics Prototyping Lab. The SxL will allow students and faculty the space to experiment with mixed reality and large physical prototyping corresponding to the Design for Environments track. The Electronics Prototyping Lab will provide space for students to solder, build and test products geared toward tangible interaction design. Alongside these new spaces, the Reese Computer Cluster is being upgraded with 3D printers and laser cutters, providing convenient access for studios located in Margaret Morrison.
In Porter Hall, a redesigned layout of the 3D Lab will provide improved support for student, staff and faculty interactions. Traffic flow has been reorganized to facilitate a more productive sequence of conversations between lab staff, students and faculty that will produce innovative design from drawings through to safely built prototypes. Dedicated computing workstations specifically for running prototyping software, like Solidworks and Keyshot, have also been installed. Digital production equipment has been updated and the lab is acquiring a 3D scanner to meet the growing demand for digitally produced prototypes.
