Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering
Designed by LMN Architects, The Gates Center greatly expands the current capacity of the school, providing critical research spaces, classrooms and lecture spaces, faculty offices, and a new home to the School?s undergraduate majors. At the heart of the building is a large central atrium that provides visual and physical connections to all floors, and acts as the school?s cultural hub. This daylight atrium is an important social incubator in this technology-centered environment, fostering connections between students, encouraging interaction among teams, and reflecting the department?s culture of innovation and collaboration across disciplines.
Photography: Tim Griffith A roof-level event center will support a wide range of educational needs, industry collaborations, and outreach functions, and provides a signature experience with its sweeping views over the campus, Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains beyond. In a dense campus precinct surrounded by engineering buildings, the expansion site interacts with the existing facility across Stevens Way?a major campus corridor shared by cars, buses, pedestrians, and bicycles?requiring a holistic approach to integrating campus circulation into the two-building program. A pedestrian circulation path through the steeply sloped, forested site crosses Stevens Way as well as two service roads as it approaches the Burke-Gilman Trail, forming a critical axial conn...