The SHED

Inspiring Imaginations

RIT’s Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) purposely brings together technology, art, and design under one roof. With flexible spaces that foster and stimulate creativity, collaboration, and discovery, the SHED is a different kind of building, designed for a unique campus, serving a new type of student.

Interior view of the atrium of the SHED with students sitting at tables.

Today’s students aren’t interested in just one thing. They explore multiple interests and consider what’s possible when bringing those interests together. The same goes for the SHED; it houses makerspaces, project team spaces, dance studios, rehearsal rooms, and performing arts theaters. It transforms the center of campus and puts a spotlight on students, faculty, and their creative collaborations.

The SHED is a place where prospective students and their parents will stop by and, in just five or 10 minutes, say, “Oh, this is RIT,” and see that we are different from almost every other institution.

Dr. David C. Munson Jr.
President

“They will see students working together on projects and studying together in other parts of the facilities. They will see a lot of people carrying musical instruments around. There will be performances and making of all different types. There is no other university that has this type of integrated facility that is not just a set of machine tools and shop equipment. It’s way more than that. I am confident that incredible things will be produced and invented in the SHED and that it forms the basis for student start-up companies and ideas that will change the world.”

Special Features

RIT believes that inspiration isn’t something one waits around for in the hopes that it strikes. Instead, we believe that in the right setting, we can generate inspiration.

Bottom-up view of the SHED's circular exterior courtyard.

120K

square feet

The SHED covers more than 120,000 square feet of new construction as well as more than 83,000 square feet of renovations in Wallace Library and Monroe Hall. The total project exceeds 200,000 gross square feet of combined renovated and new construction.

Dancers performing in the Glass-Box Theater.

180

seat glass-box theater

The SHED houses individual rehearsal spaces, a large dance instruction studio, and a music rehearsal studio. A black-box/glass-box theater seating 180 is reconfigurable to control the light entering the facility.

A class of R I T students sitting at desks in one of the new classrooms available in the SHED.

27

classroom spaces

RIT created 27 new classroom spaces within the SHED and Wallace Library. This includes 22 standard-size classrooms and five extra-large classrooms, providing more than 1,500 additional seats. All of the new classrooms will feature cutting edge video technology and flexible furniture for group work, lectures, symposiums, and special events.

Students walking in the natural spaces around the SHED, during the day.

Natural Spaces

The design includes natural spaces, a courtyard, and landscaped passages weaving through the building and under a glass bridge.

Explore Inside the SHED

A classroom full of students working while sitting at tables.
Students participating in a yoga class in the SHED.
An interior top-down view of the atrium in the SHED, showing many students sitting and walking around the space.

Be Part of the SHED

Two R I T students playing the flute in the background and two playing violins in the foreground.

Performing Arts at RIT

A rendering of the interior of one of the makerspaces in the SHED.

Makerspaces at RIT
Learn what the makerspace has to offer

For other inquiries contact Michael Buffalin IV

The Inspiration and Gifts

David Munson (left) and William Destler (right) clapping for Austin McChord (center).

RIT Trustee and 2009 alumnus Austin McChord, founder of Datto, a Connecticut-based data protection company, envisioned a new makerspace and learning complex on campus that would foster creativity and entrepreneurship at RIT.

McChord’s 2017 record gift of $50 million to RIT included $17.5 million to build the collaborative learning complex. Financing through the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York will offset the construction costs, which will exceed $100 million.

McChord requested that students be involved in naming the new facility to make it their own. Jonathan Dharmadi, a fourth-year new media design student from Elmhurst, N.Y., won a student competition naming the new complex the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED).

A gallery dedicated to RIT’s partnership with the Genesee Country Village & Museum on the first floor of the SHED will showcase university-wide research and scholarship from the partnership. RIT alumnus Philip Wehrheim (’66, business) and his wife, Anne, endowed the RIT-GCV&M partnership in 2019 with a $1.3 million gift, a portion of which is supporting the exhibition space.

RIT alumnus and trustee Frank Sklarsky ’78 and his wife, Ruth, made a significant gift of $2.5 million to establish the Sklarsky Glass Box Theater.

More Naming Opportunities in the SHED

News

  • February 27, 2023

    artist rendering of a multi-level open makerspace.

    SHED will showcase RIT maker community

    Nearly 70 different RIT student teams and clubs are poised to move into the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) this summer in preparation for the building’s official opening in the fall semester.

  • February 1, 2023

    four researchers standing in a room under construction.

    Expanding RIT’s research footprint

    RIT has been expanding its research footprint to accommodate the university’s growing research portfolio. The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED), which opens this fall, is enabling the university to convert 10 existing classrooms, totaling more than 23,000 square feet, into new research space. Another 14,700 square feet of research space opened in January in Brown Hall.

  • February 1, 2023

    aerial view of a building under construction in the midst of brick buildings.

    Shaping the SHED into a campus masterpiece

    As students head to class each day, a new showpiece is rising at the center of RIT’s campus. The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED)—which was first announced in 2017 and funded in part by a $50 million gift from alumnus Austin McChord ’09—is a multi-use complex that will showcase RIT’s technology, the arts, and design. The SHED is on track to open this fall.

  • December 5, 2022

    graphic for Joe Loffredo, associate vice president for academic affairs and registrar.

    Building the SHED: A Q&A with RIT registrar Joe Loffredo

    The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) and the renovated Wallace Library will reopen in less than a year. Work has begun to schedule the fall semester classes that will be held for the first time in the SHED complex, and Joe Loffredo, RIT associate vice president for Academic Affairs and registrar, is leading the effort to assign the classrooms in Wallace Library.