Overview

This is a summary page, for more information go to the Blog.

The Gates and Hillman Centers will be the new home for parts of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. It consists of two buildings: the Gates Center for Computer Science and the Hillman Center for Future Generation Technologies. The Centers are located in the Valley between the Purnell Center, Cyert Hall, Doherty Hall and Newell Simon Hall. Here are some key facts:

  • The combination of the two buildings includes 217K gross square feet of new research and teaching space.
  • The 157K sqft Gates Center is on the South side and faces the cut, and the 60K sqft Hillman Center is on the North and faces Forbes Avenue. The two buildings are connected at all levels.
  • The Gates Center was made possible by a lead gift of $20 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hillman Center was made possible by a gift of $10 million from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation.
  • The project includes a covered garage with 147 spaces.
  • The project site is on 5.6 acres of land. The landscaping includes a new West Quad, the Kraus Winter Garden, nearly 300 trees arranged in groves, and more than 2,000 new shrubs, as well as a rain garden populated by wetland plants.
  • The Pausch Memorial Footbridge connects the Cut to the Gates Center, and another bridge (covered) connects the Gates Center to Newell Simon Hall.
  • The buildings include 10 new classrooms and the Rashid Auditorium with 250 seats.
  • The buildings include about 310 offices, 11 conference rooms, 29 closed project rooms (labs), 8000sqft of open project space, as well as the Planetary Robotics Center.
  • The project is designed to achieve at least a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver rating, and hopefully a Gold rating.
  • The project cost is $98.6Million and the construction cost is $72Million. This includes the cost for the garage and landscaping.
  • Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam from Atlanta were the lead architects. The architectural team included Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. (landscape architects), Edge Studio (associate architects), and Arup (engineers). The construction managers and general contractor was PJ Dick Inc..
  • The building was occupied in August 2009.

    • For more information and discussion please visit the Blog, which includes information on:

  • Common and Uncommon Spaces (May, 09)
  • Connections: The Bridges of Gates Hillman (April, 09)
  • Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics (Nov, 08)
  • When will we move? (Oct, 08)
  • Topping off ceremony (Sept, 08)
  • The Randy Pausch Memorial Bridge (July 08)
  • The Tree House (May 08)
  • The Gates Hillman Test (May 08)
  • Hillman Center Gift (March 08)
  • Fall 07 Updates (Oct 07)
  • Idiosyncratic (Sep 06)
  • Interiors and Floor Plans (Aug 06)
  • The Landscape (Aug 06)
  • August Exterior Renderings (Aug 06)
  • Impressions from SCS (April 06)
  • Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (April 06)
  • Preliminary Renderings (April 06)
  • The Architects (April 06)