Claremont McKenna College to Dedicate Robert Day Sciences Center

The RDSC was designed by the architects at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), who have been recognized by Architectural Digest for projects that "expand the definition of what the built environment can look like—and how it can improve our lives and the world, or worlds, we inhabit." The project is BIG's first built project in the Los Angeles area.

Named for Robert Day, a Class of 1965 alumnus, notable philanthropist, and founder of TCW Group and chairman and president of the W.M. Keck Foundation, the Robert Day Sciences Center is the new home for CMC's Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences, an interdisciplinary, expansive academic program dedicated to powerful learning opportunities that unlock new understanding and solutions in pursuit of society's greatest challenges. With a curriculum embodied by an introductory course titled "Codes of Life" — which is taken by all CMC students, regardless of major — undergraduates in the new department complete foundational integrated, multi-disciplinary courses in chemistry, biology, and physics, as well as in machine learning and data science. The 18 members of the faculty — with seven more to come — include physicists, engineers, neuroscientists, chemists, and data scientists who themselves transcend disciplinary boundaries. Faculty build strong intellectual bridges within and outside the department in collaboration with CMC faculty in psychology, economics, government, philosophy, literature, and many other disciplines.

"The Robert Day Sciences Center is more than a building—it's a launchpad for infinite possibility," said Heather Antecol, CMC's vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty and James G. Boswell Professor of Economics. "From its earliest sketches with Bjarke Ingels Group to the vibrant, light-filled reality before us now, I've watched this vision grow into a world-class hub for integrated sciences. Together, we've built groundbreaking curriculum, recruited a founding chair and faculty united by a shared vision, and collaborated with experts across disciplines—scientists, social scientists, humanists, medical professionals, and our extraordinary CMC team—whose creativity and dedication shaped every detail."

The revolutionary undergraduate integrated sciences program is organized around three grand challenges: Health, Brain, and Planet. The curriculum is problem-based, computational, research-centered, collaborative, and solutions-driven. Each CMC student is required to build a generative AI tool in the context of a serious scientific challenge in society. The program is the natural extension of CMC's nearly 80-year history of integrating disciplines in the liberal arts and experiential leadership development through its mission to "prepare students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership in business, government, and the professions."

"The grand challenges in the human condition are complex," explained CMC President Hiram Chodosh, "and no one discipline can fully contemplate or respond to a wicked problem. The highest value solutions are unknown.

"Our program is designed to prepare this next great generation for that higher calling. It is especially important today in the era of AI, to advance our finest human intelligence to answer the questions of our time."

The new Robert Day Sciences Center, sited on the eastern edge of the campus, brings together 135,000 square feet of classrooms, labs, offices, and public gathering spaces in a world-class structure to inspire new ways of thinking. Designed in the rough shape of a "hashtag," each level rotates 45 degrees to form a sky lit, vertical atrium space at the heart of the building. The atrium is the venue for "Magnetic Field" by Damián Ortega, a commissioned sculpture of metal rings and 1,476 glass spheres that mimic the shape of the electromagnetic energy that surrounds the Earth. The stacked design and central artium results in a series of indoor terraces overlooking the "Social Stairs," a central café and gathering space on the ground floor, as well as eight outdoor terraces offering sweeping views of the mountains in the north.

"The Robert Day Sciences Center brings together computer science, data science, and life sciences together in one integrated environment. As the first completed building of our master plan for Claremont McKenna, it extends the north mall into a zigzag of malls, becoming a distributor of flows for the entire campus," said Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director of BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.

"We imagined the Sciences Center as a series of parallel building volumes side by side — with a public space in between — that are rotated in all the same directions as the mall. Even though each of the individual building volumes are rational, flexible, capable of being computer labs or wet labs, the open atrium in between becomes a Pirenesian social space where you can see fellow students, faculty, colleagues, professors from every level," Ingels continued. "So even if you spend most of your time in a wet lab, computer lab or classroom, there will still be many opportunities for sparks to fly between you and your fellow students, stimulating the exchange of ideas across the traditional silos of knowledge. In that sense, the Robert Day Sciences Center becomes a crucible where all the different kinds of knowledge, all the different kinds of people, all the different kinds of students and teachers come together in one complex, three-dimensional learning environment."

These public spaces are home to a suite of scientific instruments that rivals those at many major research institutions. The RDSC will include a microscopy suite with best-in-class imaging facilities, an electroencephalogram suite for performing non-invasive brain electrical recordings of human subjects, a nuclear magnetic resonance lab, and a large high-performance computing cluster that will support a number of research efforts in neuroscience, computational chemistry, and genomics and computational biology, among others. The building's lab spaces intentionally encourage connection between faculty with complementary backgrounds, bringing transparency and dialogue to the pursuit of new scientific discoveries.

The RDSC is the first structure to be completed on CMC's Roberts Campus, a 75-acre expansion of the college's eastern footprint made possible in 2022 by a $140 million gift from George R. Roberts, a Class of 1966 alumnus, trustee, and business and finance pioneer. Along with academic, administrative, and residential buildings, the Roberts Campus will include the Sports Bowl, a new athletics complex featuring eight athletic and practice fields. Phase One of that complex is expected to open in Fall 2026.

Later this month, on Sept. 26, the college will open its doors to the community for a series of public programs. Guests will hear from students and faculty and attend talks by Ingels and Ortega in which they will discuss creating art in pursuit of integrated science. At 5 p.m. a public ribbon-cutting event will take place on the Social Stairs. More details are available on the website.

About Claremont McKenna College

Claremont McKenna College is a private, 1,300-student residential liberal arts college located east of Los Angeles in Southern California. Since 1946, the College's mission has been to prepare students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership in business, government, and the professions. Renowned for its Open Academy commitments to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and constructive dialogue, as well as expertise in economics and government, Claremont McKenna also features an accomplished faculty of scholars and committed teachers in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Students are drawn to the College's unparalleled offerings, including 11 research institutes and centers; the ability to conduct research one-on-one with faculty; and access to leaders, artists, and visionaries who engage with students at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. Claremont McKenna is a member of The Claremont Colleges. For more information, visit cmc.edu.

About BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group is a Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Zurich, Riyadh, Bhutan, and Oslo-based group of architects, designers, urbanists, landscape professionals, interior and product designers, researchers, and inventors. Led by Bjarke Ingels, BIG has designed projects including the Google HQ, the LEGO Museum, and the forthcoming Athletics Ballpark in Las Vegas, and is currently involved in projects throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. BIG's architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes, with the belief that by hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, architects can find the freedom to change the surface of our planet to better fit contemporary life forms. 

SOURCE Claremont McKenna College