Architects Channel ‘Jenga’ To Stack 135,000-Square-Foot College Space To Life

Come 2024, students at the Claremont McKenna College in California will get to experience the new Robert Day Sciences Center, a 135,000-square-foot addition to the campus that will house the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences.

Named after Robert Day, a 52-year-old alumnus who currently helms the WM Keck Foundation, the building will be brought to life by the architectural Bjarke Ingels Group as part of a series of ongoing developments hoping to take the university into a new era. 

You wouldn’t be mistaken to think the forthcoming building looks akin to a game of Jenga, with the architectural firm revealing that the interesting layout was part of the plan to maximize integration and interaction within the center. 

The result? A column-free, open interior that will provide both faculty and students the freedom and flexibility to “adapt to the ever-evolving demands of technology and science.” 

In addition, each level of the building orients towards a different direction of the campus, symbolizing the constant flow of people and ideas between the labs and classrooms through the course of a day.  

“It is our hope that the building will not only provoke new conversations between scientists, but that it may also stimulate the rest of the liberal arts students to take a deeper interest in the sciences and vice versa,” says founder Bjarke Ingels.

[via New Atlas and Bjarke Ingels Group, images via Bjarke Ingels Group]