The new Media Arts, Data, and Design Center at the University of Chicago is a 20,000-square-foot collaborative space for inquiry and experimentation at this transdisciplinary crossroads. A partnership between UChicago Arts, the Physical Sciences Division, the UChicago Library, and the Division of the Humanities, the center supports work and research by faculty, students, staff, and community partners with cutting-edge technology.

The MADD center will be a home for a number of University initiatives and activities, including the Hack Arts Lab (HAL), an open-access digital fabrication, prototyping, and visualization facility operated by UChicagoArts; the Weston Game Lab, building on the work of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab, which offers expanded and centralized resources for the study, play, and development of analog, electronic, virtual and online games. The Library’s electronic games collection will also be relocated to Crerar; an expanded Computer Science Instructional Labs (CSIL), a Physical Sciences Division facility providing hardware and software for training and education; the UChicago Library’s Kathleen A. Zar Room houses the Research Computing Center Visualization Lab, boasting new data visualization technology, instruction sessions, symposiums and workshops focused on research, teaching, and learning; also in the Kathleen A. Zar Room, the Library’s GIS Hub enables geospatial research and learning activities by providing access to geographical information systems (GIS) software and hardware and an expert GIS and maps librarian who offers consultations and training.

Top: Digital reconstruction of “Raided Village” mural, Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza, by Magdalena Glotzer, AB ’19 (2019), based on a 1931 reconstruction by Ann Axtel Morris and diagrams from Morris, Earl Halstead. The Temple of the warriors at Chichen Itzá, Yucatan. Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1931.