School of Art + Art History
Entrepreneurial creativity has a new home SW 2nd Avenue in Gainesville has been abuzz as of late with rows of new residence developments popping up, but none are as ambitious and inventive as Infinity Hall. Equipped with a 3D printing lab (the A² Fab Lab), a student-run graphic design studio (Mint Design Studio) and an application development space (MADE@UF), this impressive residence hall, a partnership between University of Florida Housing and Signet Developers of Florida, Inc., is designed with innovation at its core. “Infinity Hall’s entrepreneurship livinglearning community will offer an experience that is unmatched by any other in the nation,” says UF Housing Academic Initiatives Specialist Mary C. Jordan. “The building’s identity as a combination residence hall and incubator space creates a true experiential learning center in the heart of Gainesville’s Innovation Square.” Located just two blocks east of campus in the Innovation Hub Corridor, the new residence hall is just a short walk or bike ride to the arts and business areas of campus,” says Jordan. “The glass-front building will allow passersby to see students working in the lab spaces and in the classroom,” says Jordan. “This is an active space.”
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MUSE Magazine | Spring 2015
Richard Heipp, director of the School of Art + Art History, was a driving force for the integration of A2 Fab Lab and Mint Design Studio into Infinity Hall. “Infinity Hall offers an environment that's open, a space where students and faculty can get together and share ideas,” says Heipp. “The idea driving this kind of ‘collision’ is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. The concept is that by putting what might be thought of as disparate academics together, you might come up with new things, or innovative and different ways of problem solving.”
Set to open in August 2015, many of Infinity Hall's rooms will be able to be equipped with offices for students to run their startup businesses. “Students will have the space and resources to cultivate business ideas, test them and run with them if they wish,” says Jordan. “The building is being built with an entrepreneurial spirit in mind.”
— JESSIE WARD