Wheeling experiment carts right up to the stations, they can plug their projects into computers to gather or analyze data. Each station can accommodate two teams made up of two to four people. The designers heeded engineering professionals' judgment that the school's graduates had good technical skills but lacked experience in teamwork and in subdisciplines other than their own, according to Dr. Carlson. As a result, the layout of the workstations emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, just as the design of the facility makes clear that creating buildings is an interdisciplinary undertaking. In the two computer-station plazas, students in two or three classes may mingle at a time.
Professors can also take groups a few yards away to corporate-style meeting rooms.
Administrators, however, hoping to prevent a return to the lecture format, have warned faculty members that they can use the meeting rooms only for short periods, and that the rooms cannot be reserved. Students in one first-year course have designed devices for disabled people. But this one is outfitted with skis, and incorporates pivoting and shock-absorption systems that permit fluid motion. Beams, pipes, and other parts of usually hidden infrastructure are exposed. Cutaways and transparent panels reveal wall construction, plumbing, conduits, and elevator hydraulic system.