New building

For those who walk the halls of the state-of-the-art new facility for the School of Data Science in the years to come, it might come as a surprise to learn just how humble its beginnings were. 

There was Olsson Hall and the red shed of Dell Building One during the Data Science Institute years. There was the Elson Building, formerly the student health center, a building that retained many of the trappings of a medical facility and was home to many faculty and staff during the early years of the School.

Classes were held, the School expanded, and research continued, but the limitations in proximity and space weren’t always conducive to the sort of collaborative spirit the School was founded on. Fortunately, this was only a temporary arrangement. 

Thanks to the donation from Jaffray Woodriff, a new home for the School of Data Science would be built as part of the University’s expansion at Charlottesville’s Emmet-Ivy Corridor, which would also include the new Karsh Institute of Democracy.

Groundbreaking took place in October 2021. And just like the school that would occupy it, this would be no ordinary building.  

“We had three design principles,” said Arlyn Burgess, who has led efforts pertaining to the new building’s construction from day one. “They were wellness, sustainability, and utilization.” 

Burgess explained that the School wanted to create a safe, healthy, eco-friendly environment where faculty and staff both desired to work and could do their best work.

Beyond the design, Burgess and Phil Bourne wanted the building to embody the discipline that would be practiced there and the principles that had guided the School’s founding — literally and figuratively a School Without Walls.

“There was a feeling that when you walk into the building it should be a physical manifestation of what it is we believe data science to be,” said Burgess. 

This meant the building would include exposed steel, open hallways, a large atrium, a corporate commons for discussions with the private sector, and monumental stairs, among other features — all aimed at fostering interaction, openness, and collaboration. 

“I think we designed a school to maximize all of those things,” said Bourne. 

There will even be a data sculpture. After a lot of brainstorming, and many designs, school officials arrived at something that, in Burgess’ words, “is really quite simplistic in that it is literally bringing raw data up through the building in an architectural scale.” A variety of data sets, she explained, will be deployed, which could tell any number of stories. 

The idea is that this will be an interactive experience, Burgess said, with the user experience depending on the perspective from which you are viewing the sculpture. 

“We thought that there was something really powerful about that, that you experienced the data through your own lens,” she said.

The School also sponsored an art competition in conjunction with the new building’s opening. The contest, called Data is ART and centered around the theme of “Our World,” invited submissions from all formats and mediums, with the chosen art submissions from finalists set to be displayed at the building.

The new home of the School of Data Science, the School Without Walls, held its public opening in late April 2024, with faculty and staff moving in the following month.