University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Engineering, arts, and innovation cross-pollinate to transform education
This new cross-disciplinary center is a three-story addition to Morey Hall, a five-story federal style building completed in 1930. The commission was the result of an invited design competition and addresses the university’s desire to build a center to inspire students and prepare them for careers in new media, arts, engineering, and associated intersections of these fields.
Envisioned as a learning playground, multidisciplinary collaboration opportunities abound at this new center. Students can tinker, explore, collaborate, and experiment 24 hours a day with new technologies and physical and digital tools. Two new majors—Digital Media Studies and Audio and Music Engineering—take full advantage of this unprecedented facility.
Creative problem-solving is supported through:
- Flexible and reconfigurable engineering fabrication spaces for prototype designs, supported by related discussion and observation areas
- Media arts spaces such as a multipurpose learning studio, a hybrid production suite, rapid prototyping areas, and individual recording studios
- Areas for individual and group study and collaboration
This new innovation center, named after University Trustee and philanthropist Ronald Rettner, has become a meeting and study nexus for students across the university attracted to the energy and inherent promise of cross-discipline curriculum.
