As part of USC Viterbi’s strong commitment to undergraduate engineering education, including hands-on and outside-the-curriculum activities, as well as innovation and entrepreneurship, we are in the process of redesigning the university’s Science & Engineering Library into a top-tier design-build space.

Visit the USC Viterbi Initiative page for more information.

The reimagined space will be USC Viterbi’s own unique version of such design-build spaces being built nationwide. While they might have different names — maker space, fablab, innovation space — they are nonetheless collectively becoming a key element of engineering undergraduate education.

In this exciting project, each of the three floors of the Science & Engineering Library is being redesigned. The first floor will house a 9,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art space, available for undergraduate students, including a machine shop and a fabrication lab, as well as workspaces for the 13 student teams with outside-the-curriculum projects, such as the Rocket Propulsion Lab and the SC Racing team. The second floor will feature areas for group meetings and entrepreneurial brainstorming sessions. The third floor will hold areas supported by the Science & Engineering Library. The redesign of the existing library space will promote a collaborative research and hands-on environment in a space that encourages creativity and experiential learning.

“This project strengthens the undergraduate engineering experience as it relates to design, experiential learning and entrepreneurial mind-set,” said USC Viterbi Dean Yannis C. Yortsos. “Ideate-design-build spaces are vital to our students’ experience, and they contribute to their development as engineers, makers and innovators.”