Designed by Kva Kennedy & Violich Architecture, The new Institute of Data Science at the University of Rochester is the signature focus of the University of Rochester’s Strategic Plan to foreground information technology in a new educational model for cross-disciplinary research and innovation. Designed to LEED Silver standards, the 61,000 square foot building program includes smart classrooms and faculty offices, robotics, science, computation and environmental labs, a 160-seat auditorium and the Goergen Institute, a new public resource for information technology.
Photography: John Horner
The massing of Institute of Data Science is created from a simple rectangular volume that is “broken” to unite two campus geometries: it offers a new public face to the Genesee River and completes the Science & Engineering Quadrangle transforming exterior vehicular roadways into a new 2-acre pedestrian and bicycle-oriented campus landscape.
The public circulation sequence is expressed on the exterior facades, with large vertical glazed bays that “breakthrough” the brick envelope to reflect double-height collaboration zones and shared overlooks that admit natural light deep into the building interior. A double-height curtain wall on the first and second levels interlocks with the figure of hung brick on the upper floors and expresses the Institute’s mission to create an open and collaborative research culture that engages the gree...