CMU’s plan for Robotics Innovation Center in Hazelwood moves forward

Pittsburgh’s City Planning Commission has approved plans to turn part of a former brownfield site into Carnegie Mellon University’s new three-story, 150,000-square-foot Robotics Innovation Center.

The metal-and-glass research building will feature one and a half acres of “running room” for robotics testing. A large part of the “running room” will be an flexible outdoor research environment that will allow robotics engineers to see the effects different types of terrain have on their machines.

“There might be moon rocks one day, and they might be planting things and doing urban agriculture research another day. It’s a really flexible outdoor research environment,” said Jennifer Askey, an associate principal at architectural firm Perkins Eastman.

Adjacent to the laboratory will be a drone cage and an agricultural zone, among other features. The building’s facade and fencing will heavily feature glass and art meant to engage the public.

“We want this to happen. Hopefully it’ll spur the next young minds to get into robotics research,” said Bob Reppe, CMU’s assistant vice president and university architect.

Earthwork on the project is set to begin in August and the university estimates that the building will be substantially completed by May 2025.

Here’s more from Technical.ly on the tech development plans for Hazelwood Green.

This story by Lucas Dufalla was originally published by PublicSource, a news partner of Technical.ly. PublicSource is a nonprofit media organization delivering local journalism for the Pittsburgh region at publicsource.org. You can sign up for its newsletters at publicsource.org/newsletters.