Students, faculty, staff and University donors gathered on Downey Way Tuesday morning for the Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The seven-story building will house the Lord Department of Computer Science and USC’s new School of Advanced Computing.

“What we’re really celebrating is, of course, an undeniable legacy of the Viterbi School of Engineering and computer science at USC,” said President Carol Folt. “We’re also celebrating its power to truly shape the future. It will be a vital hub — as it’s always been and will be in the future of research.”

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The building was named for donors Dr. Allen Ginsburg and Charlotte Ginsburg. Dr. Ginsburg is a retired ophthalmologist who has worked in entrepreneurship and philanthropy. 

Construction on the building began in spring 2021, but the planning discussions began as early as spring 2019, Yortsos said. The Ginsburgs and Yortsos first met during the opening of the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics. 

Sitting near the Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience and Irani Hall, which house biology research, Ginsburg Hall is a part of USC’s “frontiers of computing” moonshot.

“The new computer science building will help provide this convergence between computer science, biology [and] medicine to be able to enable advances in health, but also in every other discipline,” said Yannis Yortsos, Viterbi dean. “We help engineer a better world for all humanity, which is our vision. I share with Allen and Charlotte this vision.”

The building also serves as a center for computer science students and for faculty and student computer science research on campus.

“We have been growing very aggressively and have really struggled with space for quite a few years,” said Neno Medvidović, chair of the computer science department. “I’ve been at USC for almost 26 years. At this point, it will be the first time that the entire department — on campus, part of the department — is going to be in the same building.”

The ground floor and two underground floors have collaborative spaces, while the top four floors consist primarily of office and research space for professors and graduate students. Medvidović said computer science lectures will continue to be held in multiple buildings across campus given the large size of classes.

“One thing about this building is it’s not going to have any classroom space in it, but it’s going to have these large open spaces,” said Medvidović. “So a student would come in here just maybe to relax and unload between their classes, to do homework, to maybe work on the project. They might meet with other students and put together a makeshift team.”

In addition to a 300-seat amphitheater, there are large atrium spaces that span multiple floors on the upper levels.

“There’s a ton of beautiful study spaces here. Especially if it’s not a nice day out, this would be a great place to go,” said Ethan Fulcher, a graduate student studying mechanical engineering.

For the ribbon-cutting ceremony, a small, bipedal robot walked and gave scissors to the administrators and donors waiting to cut the ribbon. After the ceremony, faculty and students presented robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D modeling projects inside the building.

The building is marked by floor-to-ceiling windows to facilitate collaboration among offices.

“We are a little more nocturnal as computer scientists,” said Jernej Barbic, a professor of computer science. “So we like to have big windows because it pushes us away from the night and more into the day … It just stimulates my mind to see the Southern California sunshine, as opposed to being in a lab without windows.”

The building is the first on campus to receive a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certification, which Tim Cowell, director of space planning and design for Viterbi, said was a priority for Viterbi. The building has solar panels, radiant cooling and a sunken garden.

“In a typical building of this size, [a solar array] would generate about 25% of the energy required for the building,” said Cowell. “But because we’re computer science and we have a big server farm in the bottom, it only really creates about three to 5% of the energy required. But because USC buys green energy and offsets that, we are able to capture that and get that late LEED point.”

The building was originally intended to open in 2023, but coronavirus and supply chain issues led to delays. Faculty will begin moving in on Monday. Cowell said Viterbi plans to move all faculty into the building by October.