By: Chris A. Weber

Guy Blelloch's question came off the cuff as he toured Carnegie Mellon's campus on a vibrant May afternoon. Fresh off his doctorate from MIT and emboldened, perhaps, by the optimism that accompanies spring and all its inherent possibilities, the 26-year-old faculty candidate posed the query to Nico Habermann, then-head of Carnegie Mellon's computer science department.

"Any talk about getting a new building for computer science?" he asked without hesitation, clearly running the risk of stepping on some serious administrative toes. But hey, when you're young, fearless, and looking to leave your mark in the computer science field with one of the top departments in the country, what do you have to lose?

Habermann was gracious but noncommittal in his reply. Big changes were coming, however. The year was 1988, and the department was on the cusp of branching off from the Mellon College of Science. Three months later, the School of Computer Science was born.

"I remember he sounded hopeful in his tone, saying something like, 'It'd be great to have a new building,'" Blelloch says, looking back on the moment 20 years later.

These days, Blelloch isn't looking back very often. Standing in front of his seventh-floor office window in Wean Hall, the professor of algorithmic studies and programming languages gazes to his left toward the south end of The Cut. He knows that on the opposite side of the building, facing northeast, the answer to his two-decade-old question is emerging from a sloping Oakland hillside.

"The building was always on the radar," he says, smiling. "It was just a question of resources."

Shoehorned into a slightly dog-legged, 5.6-acre plot of land, the Hillman Center for Future-Generation Technologies will be one of two buildings comprising the university's $98.6 million capital improvement project for the School of Computer Science, slated for completion late next spring. The complex is part of Inspire Innovation, the university's $1 billion capital campaign that was formally announced this month (see News Flash: Inspiring Innovation).

The Hillman Center will stand four stories and encompass 50,000 square feet. The trapezoidal structure will accommodate 200 faculty and graduate students. "Some of the most important and forward-looking research at the university—and in the world—is going to take place in this building," says Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon.

Joining the Hillman Center will be the Gates Center for Computer Science, a 159,000-square-foot, six-story building that will house undergraduate studies. Each building bears the name of its primary benefactor: the former named in honor of Henry L. Hillman, whose $10 million gift through the Henry L. Hillman Foundation last February gave the building its identity; the latter named after Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder who gave $20 million through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation during the project's initial funding efforts in 2004.

Blelloch's attention on this day focuses on the adjacent building, and with good reason. For the past two years, he has served the School of Computer Science as associate dean of planning for the Hillman Center's overall architectural design. In addition to the voluntary position, he acts as the building and program committee coordinator, a liaison between the school's faculty, the university's Campus Design & Facilities Development group, and the architect for the complex, Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, Inc., of Atlanta.

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