Page 46 - spaces4learning, Fall 2021

spaces4learning FACILITY FOCUS
CREATIVE CURVES DISTINGUISH BOTH DESIGN AND STUDY AT GONZAGA UNIVERSITY
The John and Joan Bollier Family Center for Integrated Science and Engineering
By Tom Miller
MESSAGE-BEARING banners sprouting from light poles greet visitors to Gonzaga University’s campus in Spokane, Wash.: “This is where potential expands,” “... where promise begins,” “... where purpose unfolds.”
Key players in a sparkling new science and engineering cen- ter overlooking the Spokane River herald the 82,000-square- foot building as doubling down on those messages for the Jesuit school’s students.
The John and Joan Bollier Family Center for Integrated Science and Engineering completes a 270,490-square-foot quadrangle of buildings aiming to enhance interaction be- tween students and faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the College of Arts and Sciences. It adds numerous open spaces and 18 new labs.
Integration was the goal from the beginning.
“The inspiration, this idea of housing an interdisciplinary way of working more seamlessly together, was an amazing vision that Gonzaga brought to the project,” said architect Lisa Petterson, principal with SRG Partnership Inc. of Portland, Ore. She cited a “great process” of working with faculty over a period of maybe a dozen visits to the campus.
One result: Spaces dedicated to collaboration account for 34 percent of the building.
Just inside the campus-side entrance to the Bollier Center is the Innovation Studio. It will house the first-year engineering seminar course—seven teams of four students simultaneous-
ly. Surrounding this space are research and teaching labs for multiple STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Their proximity and open viewing are by design.
“Our goal is to provide visible confirmation to these stu- dents, who are just starting their engineering journey, many and different examples of research topics being studied,” said Karlene Hoo, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. “We hope this setting helps them imagine what their own research could resemble.”
And thanks to the open design, any students who are undecided about a major or minor might be swayed just by walking by and seeing students and faculty at work, seeing what’s possible.
Annmarie Caño, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
embraces the possibilities the Bollier Center brings for team- work across the College and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Among the 18 labs, one is a Math Learning Center that supports students across programs, as well as providing out- reach and tutoring to local K-12 students.
Another is an Environmental Biology lab that examines
the impact of climate change on aquatic environments. And another set of labs includes chemistry and biochemistry labs that investigate parasitic, viral and bacterial diseases, as well as cancer-cell growth.
The addition of new faculty over the last several years has necessitated new space, and the Bollier Center delivers, Dean Caño said.
“I love that there are numerous study spaces throughout the building for students and faculty to use to brush up on their work or brainstorm new collaborative projects,” Caño said. “With loads of natural light and access to cutting-edge technology, the Bollier Center is poised to become a hub for STEM innovation at Gonzaga, in service of the common good.”
Visibility is seen as key to becoming that hub.
“The ability to see the curriculum on display was a goal,” Petterson said. “Walking between the buildings on Cataldo Way, students will see the ‘maker classes’: a Baha car, concrete canoes. Those areas are open to the pedestrian pathway.”
The engineering and computer science programs flourish around best practices for student learning — hands-on projects performed by small teams, said Dean Hoo, whose school is ranked in the top 10 percent nationwide for nondoctoral pro- grams. They collaborate with their peers all the way from the first-year seminar to their senior capstone design project.
“Our students learn engineering and computer science principles first,” Dean Hoo said. “Then, they apply those principles to their designs and prototypes while working together as a team, as they would in the real world. Project-based learning is necessary to rein- force and practice what's been learned from a lecture setting. Many of these are industry-proposed and may require assembly space that a traditional lecture hall was never designed to accommodate.”
Monikers given other new labs include Innovation, Cir- cuits, Tribology (the study of friction, wear, lubrication and design of bearings), Materials Engineering, Dynamics and Vibration, Clean Combustion and Environmental Engineering.
Gonzaga campus architect Mac McCandless, now retired,
46 FALL 2021 | spaces4learning.com