University of Illinois Breaks Ground on New Siebel Center for Design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
University of Illinois Breaks Ground on New Siebel Center for Design
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Creates ‘Playground’ for Future Designers
Champaign, IL (April 26, 2018) – The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UI) yesterday celebrated the groundbreaking for the new Siebel Center for Design. The facility, designed by architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ), will provide UI students with spaces for making and learning across all disciplines.
“We wanted to create a building that focuses on human-centered design, one that encourages students to think more broadly,” said architect Peter Bohlin, BCJ’s founding principal. “Everything will have multiple uses—we imagine people utilizing the spaces in ways neither you nor I can predict.”
The 59,000-square-foot building will feature five collaboration studios that house up to 400 students; a large-scale construction and prototyping studio; and an open-space workshop with 3-D printers, metal fabricators, laser and water-jet cutters, and computer-guided machining tools. There will also be dedicated rooms for digital audio, video and virtual reality technologies, as well as public gathering spaces and galleries.
In addition to the university’s structured base curriculum, students will be able to choose the methods in which they learn. The intent is to make the center as multidisciplinary and versatile as possible, avoiding the conventional faculty- student relationship. Traditional coursework will be paired with workshops and extracurricular activities, complemented by the building’s flexible design.
The driving force behind the new center is business and tech executive Tom Siebel, who has founded two leading software firms and worked with Oracle’s Larry Ellison. He has three degrees from UI and donated $25 million toward the project. In addition, he gave $32 million to the university in 1999 for its Siebel Center for Computer Science, also designed by BCJ.
Rachel Switzky, former executive director at international design and consulting firm IDEO, has been named the center’s inaugural director. Prior to her work at IDEO, Switzky led user experience and implementation programs for clients at Razorfish. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial design from UI.
Construction of the new Siebel Center for Design is expected to be complete in early 2020. ###
About Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Founded in 1965, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson is a national architecture practice noted for elegant and humane design, ranging from modest houses to large academic, civic, cultural, and corporate buildings. To date, the firm has received more than 675 design awards, including three AIA Top Ten Green Project Awards and the AIA Architecture Firm Award. The firm is well known for its work with Apple, designing stores such as the iconic Fifth Avenue cube in New York City and flagship stores worldwide. The practice has also created headquarters for Pixar, Adobe and Square, and city halls in Seattle and Newport Beach, Calif.