Building On Innovation

Step inside the light-filled atrium and you’ll notice open classrooms with movable walls, furniture on wheels, tech-enabled “smart” classrooms, wet and dry labs, and the Back of the Napkin Café, the grab-and-go eatery that opens to shared work benches and booths when inspiration strikes over coffee. But it’s what goes on among the faculty, staff, and students that’s really important.

“Every aspect of the building is designed for how we teach and learn at Dartmouth,” says Alexis Abramson, dean of Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. “Everything—from the floors to the furniture and to the tools in every classroom—encourages connection, creativity, collaboration, and active learning.”

­­Rising five stories above West Wheelock Street, ECSC is the first major Dartmouth building to welcome students, faculty, and visitors from across the Connecticut River to campus. The 160,000-square-foot facility, which connects via tunnels and bridges to MacLean Engineering Sciences Center and Cummings Hall, as well as to the new Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, doubles Thayer’s footprint and serves as the new home for the the department of computer science, Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, the electron microscopy suite, and the new Design Initiative at Dartmouth (DIAD). Fitted with high-performance energy conservation features, ECSC is expected to earn LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

What began in 2013 as part of President Philip J. Hanlon ’77’s vision to significantly expand engineering at Dartmouth, the ECSC opened to students in March for the first day of spring term.

Its open architecture facilitates Dartmouth’s hallmark collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to education and research, Abramson says. “By bringing together engineering, computer science, energy, entrepreneurship, design, and business in the West End, we create the magic that only happens at the intersection of all these disciplines.”

“I am excited by the new opportunities emerging for students to engage in the new center. Design offers a framework for collaboration across disciplines on research that addresses our world’s complex human-social-technical problems,” says Professor Sol Diamond ’97 Th’98, whose lab is in the new space.

Kyra McLaughlin ’23 agrees. She is working in Diamond’s lab to develop an improved nasal CPAP interface for preemies. “Learning in such a creative environment will be a source of inspiration to all aspiring designers and engineers and strengthen the human-centered design community at Dartmouth,” says Mclaughlin, who is studying engineering modified with studio art and minoring in human-centered design. “That’s where you’ll find me!”

Focus on Impact

The new center greatly expands Dartmouth’s capacity to take ideas from the lab to the marketplace. From green energy technology to mobile devices that monitor health to intelligent systems that can improve everyday life, research here is tackled collaboratively by faculty and students from across engineering, computer science, and other disciplines. With Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship located on the ground floor, faculty and students have ready access to resources to support their startup efforts. "We have a tangible emphasis on entrepreneurship. This provides more opportunities to connect, from bottom up, phenomenal research with broader societal challenges and opportunities," says Professor Lee Lynd.

Engineering Without Boundaries

Faculty from different disciplines will be able to co-teach courses in a range of high-tech spaces. The Technology-Enhanced Active Learning (TEAL) Classrooms integrate computer science and engineering with a flexible “flipped classroom” that enables professors and students to cluster around coding projects or collaborate on design challenges. The Design Loft, home of the new Design Initiative at Dartmouth (DIAD), is instantly reconfigurable into arrangements for lectures, hands-on workshops, or casual conversation. “It will allow our multidisciplinary community to come together to inspire each other and create ideas,” says Professor Eugene Korsunskiy, co-leader of DIAD.

Hands-On Learning

Classrooms and offices are interspersed with project studios and labs that encourage students to learn by doing at every turn. Couch Project Lab II doubles the space for team-based learning and the Harold Edward Cable Makerspace is outfitted with beginner-friendly fabrication equipment and 3-D printers.

This article appeared in the Spring 2022 issue of the Dartmouth Engineer magazine.