The Washington State Legislature has approved a fund of $39,942,000 for constructing a new building — a Center for Transdisciplinary Learning and Innovation (TDIC) on our BC campus.
The Center will allow for an additional 60,000 to 70,000 square feet of space for programs such as computer science, interior design, information and business technologies (IBIT), art, engineering and more. The purpose of the center is to increase collaboration between these subjects, enabling students to work together in a collaborative learning environment.
This project had been explored over a long duration; a request report was completed back in December 2017 for confirming the program design, permitting and budgeting of the proposal. It pursued a discourse of rigorous planning for the years that followed.
The building for Transdisciplinary Learning and Innovation will be three stories, allowing ten general-purpose classrooms and twenty rooms for labs. There are plans to have a makerspace located on the ground floor to supply all of the academic programs provided with the institution, as well as others outside the building. The project, along with its innovative maker space, aims to represent Bellevue College’s goal for incorporating transdisciplinary education among students with varied interests.
According to the proposal, the makerspace is one of the core benefits of the new building — it will facilitate discovery, exploration and problem solving among students. It also aims to enable students to work in areas that emulate the teamwork that occurs in real-life working environments.
The construction of the building should begin in the spring of 2022 and is hoped to be completed by late spring of 2023. It is planned to be located north of the campus parking garage.
