This month, denizens of the Sustainability Suite in PSU’s Market Center Building bid a sledgehammer-wielding farewell to a well-used classroom and event space in anticipation of a new data visualization hub outfitted with wide screens and the latest technology.
The new space is being created in MCB 123, a room on the first floor of the building that’s been known casually as the "IGERT room." Students in the interdisciplinary PhD program funded by the National Science Foundation and focused on better understanding ecosystem services for urbanizing regions, have used the room as a classroom since soon after the IGERT program launch in 2010.
Vivek Shandas, associate professor of urban studies and Institute for Sustainable Solutions research director, took a sledge hammer to a wall marked with events from the room's past. Its future is much more high-tech.Supported by a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), the new high-tech data visualization space will be available to researchers and community partners who are working with complex data sets that are being used for modeling answers to research questions. While the technology was purchased to enable a district-wide energy efficiency modeling project, it will be available for a wide variety of research and curricular applications.
“The goals are to create a flexible, collaborative, and technology-enabled work space that allows faculty, students, and community partners to interact and visualize data in novel ways,” said Vivek Shandas, associate professor of urban studies and planning and research director at the PSU Institute for Sustainable Solutions. “We believe that by assembling groups of diverse stakeholders, including those from different disciplinary backgrounds, and providing creative opportunities to explore data through visualization and modeling, we can address many of the most pressing sustainability challenges facing society.”
Shandas, in partnership with Quinn Soifer, technical services manager in PSU’s Capital Projects and Construction department, has been finalizing the plans for the space, which is also supported by matching funds from the Institute for Sustainable Solutions (ISS).
When completed this summer, the room will have four installed 70-inch screens in workstations around the room and three 80-inch screens installed together at the front of the room. The screens are Mondo Pads, made by a local company, InFocus, and outfitted with speakers and touch screens. All seven of the screens will be networked, allowing both for independent work at the individual stations and collaborative work on the front three screens, with the capability to transfer work between the screens.
“This will be an active space,” Shandas said. “The walls will have paint that allows us to sketch right on them and the tables will be pushed back from the screens, which allows those who are able to stand and discuss the work.”
Shandas, who also serves as faculty for the IGERT program, joined with other longtime IGERT faculty collaborators to commemorate the room’s next iteration with a ceremonial “wall breaking.” Written on the wall were the old uses for the room, with aspirations for the new, interactive space inscribed on the other side.
From left, Shandas; Quinn Soifer, Capital Projects and Construction;
Elise Granek, IGERT faculty and associate professor, environmental science.While plans for the new space are finalized, its name hasn’t been selected. During the planning phase it’s been called a “Visualization" or "Decision" Theater, but Shandas points out that theaters are places for passive rather than interactive experiences.
ISS is accepting new ideas for naming the space between now and June 30.