Designing the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design
In 2009, the faculty of the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science created a strategic plan for advancing the school, with one of the three goals of the plan being to advance the culture of engineering on the Yale campus. Central to this goal was the creation of the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, a new 8,500 square foot space for instruction, fabrication and assembly to support curricular and extracurricular design activities. This paper details the concept for the center, its design and outfitting, and the success of the first year of operation in 2012-13. The paper discusses the principles that guided the design of the center, the collaboration of colleagues at and beyond Yale to plan it, the creation of a community of design enthusiasts who actively use it, and the ways in which it advances the culture of engineering at Yale.