Client: UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering & Applied Sciences
Location: Boelter Hall, 2nd Level Palm Court Breezeway.
Architect UCLA / DPMO
Improvement Area: 6,793 GSF
Design Started: May 2009
Construction Complete: March 2012
Construction Cost: $1.3M
The central 4 multi-purpose rooms are designed such that they can operate independently, as pairs with the utilization of deck-hung moveable partition walls, or have all walls & doors open for a singular space for exhibitions and the like. Code requirements for egress and accessibility had to take all these different configurations into consideration.
A new Multi-Purpose Student Creativity Center ~4,400 SD addition to existing 2nd Level Boelter Hall. This addition is located within the existing Breezeway from the Boelter 2nd Level Palm Courtyard to the Alleyway between C(n)SI & Boelter South. Project scope comprised of a main suite housing 4 multi-purpose rooms and a central meeting room with a satellite multi-purpose room. The Student Creativity Center is for budding engineers from high-school through undergrads to develop their creative problem solving through real-world applications such as the concrete canoe competition, model bridge building, 'robot wars' and the like. Accessibility upgrades as well as additional bicycle parking & some site work were included as part of the work. A new entrance to Boelter Hall was implemented, including a rudimentary binary code problem embedded in the floor as a nod to Boelter Hall being the birth place of the space-age internet.
A secondary aspect to the HSSEAS Student Creativity Center project was the relocation of the SE Level 2 entrance to Boelter Hall to accommodate the new Student Creativity Center. The relocated entrance was brought out an existing & unused loading dock. As part of the preliminary design investigation, it came to light that the first Internet message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969 from UCLA Boelter Hall to Stanford University. The Principal Investigator at the time was Leonard Kleinrock, now a Professor in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. Professor Kleinrock’s explanation at the time of this momentous event was “Lo and Behold!”
This was such a significant event in modern history that the idea of working the quote into the Student Creativity Center’s façade via binary pattern language was floated. However, due to campus, client & user constraints, incorporation of a binary code façade was shelved. Fortunately, at the last minute during construction, the contractor requested a floor pattern for the new vinyl tiles to be laid in the relocated entrance. This provided a quick opportunity to rework the hidden message into the project, an entrance that just so happen to be one floor below the historic room and current Kleinrock Internet History Center (KIHC) where this message was first sent. As this inclusion came late & quickly in the construction process, it was never relayed to HSSEAS or the KIHC and was soon left behind as other work progressed.
Over a year later, an overly curious computer science undergraduate student discovered and deciphered the code. A quick internet search came up with the source of the quote and Professor Klienrock found out about this nod to Internet History and was quite fabulously ecstatic about it.