A robot named Hector delivered the scissors used for a ribbon cutting ceremony at the opening of the University of Southern California’s new computer science building Tuesday morning.
The Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall — USC’s first platinum-certified LEED building — will house the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science and the newly formed School of Advanced Computing under the Viterbi School of Engineering.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, also known as LEED certification, refers to a set of construction guidelines established by the U.S. Green Building Council as a framework for creating environmentally sustainable buildings. Platinum is the highest level possible.
Tim Cowell, Viterbi’s director of space planning and design, said “no expense was spared” in the planning and construction process for the building.
“Platinum is a north star and very hard to achieve, but you have to understand from day one that that’s what your goal is,” he said. “We had to get it right.”
Cowell said the final budget for the building stood at $130 million, an increase from the initial estimate of $90 million set in 2019. The project was in part made possible by a donation from philanthropists Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg, who in recent years have made similar contributions to establish scientific research centers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg, as well as USC President Carol Folt, were in attendance on Tuesday, delivering remarks at the opening address prior to the ribbon cutting ceremony
Nenad Medvidović, chair of the department of computer science, said after working at USC for almost 26 years, the opening of the Ginsburg building felt “completely unreal.”
“The primary building for CS was [Grace Ford Salvatori Hall], which is a relatively small building that was built in the 1970s and it’s not a very large space,” he said. “We’d have to find the space for everything. ‘Let’s meet, where are we going to meet? What time? How do we book?’ And so on.”
Medvidović added he and other faculty members were involved in the design process of the building from its early stages.
“Things that were burning needs for us that we couldn’t really realize with the space that we had, that was all in a way baked into the design of the building itself,” he said.
The computer science department is made up of close to 6000 students across its undergraduate and graduate programs and employs 100 full-time faculty. The new building includes several new facilities, including a cyber physical systems lab, a server room for artificial intelligence research and a two-story “drone aviary” for indoor testing of drone technology.
Many graduate students were in attendance at Tuesday’s event, some of whom conducted live demonstrations of their lab projects in action.
Nathan Dennler, a fifth-year PhD student in computer science, presented a robot with the ability to respond to thumbs-up and thumbs-down hand signals, originally designed to interact with children who have cerebral palsy.
Dennler said he was looking forward to a building design more conducive to working with other students and faculty.
“Currently we’re in Ronald Tutor Hall. All the labs are very separated and segmented by physical walls, which I hear is not the case here,” they said. “So it should help promote collaboration.”
Amy O’Connell, a fourth-year PhD student in computer science, shared her work on a robot named “Blossom,” programmed to deliver guided meditation exercises. She shared a similar sentiment on the design of the new building.
“I’m excited to have a collaborative space with all of the other robotics students, so that we can be more in tune with what each other is working on,” O’Connell said. “Because we have really cool stuff going on.”
Cowell noted in addition to an expansion of collaborative space, Viterbi students will have access to 19 customizable “privacy pods” to study or relax in. Users can make changes to settings such as the lighting level, color and geographical environment. Four of these pods will be reservable for non-Viterbi students as well.
“You can reserve them, and you can take your time and meditate,” Cowell said. “You can do whatever you need to in that space … I think as a gift to students, that is a great place for students to go and just have a moment.”