Space

SCS staff, faculty and student offices are located in a number of CMU buildings on the Pittsburgh campus as well as along the adjacent Craig Street corridor. Here you will find links to resources including maps, location information and allocation.

Below are all buildings that comprise SCS space. Where possible, we have identified departments or business offices that can be found throughout each space. Click the tiles or links below for more information.

Other buildings

We are also located throughout these buildings:

Rates for SCS Space

Rates for SCS space are determined by a number of factors, including square footage of the room, location within a building and the building itself, among others. Rates are established per square foot, per year. 

Please note that the above rates relate to internal, departmental budget calculations. It is not possible to "rent" space from SCS or its departments in any of our buildings.

Examples

Scenario 1: A person working in Smith Hall room 111 has an office with 150 square feet of space. This office also has windows. We would multiply the square footage of 150, by the rate for a space in Smith Hall with windows (per the table above), which is $22 and this indicates a rate of $3,300 (150x22=$3,300).

The budget for the department will be reduced by $3,300 as part of our internal allocation process. 

Scenario 2: A graduate student shares Gates and Hillman Centers room 5003 with three other graduate students, whose advisors are from other departments. This means that the occupancy is measured by the number of people co-located in this space. This space has 218 square feet. We would multiply the square footage of 218 by $24, which is the rate of a space with a window in this building, and this would provide us with a total of $5,232 for this room. Because the student only occupies 25% of the space (one out of four students co-located in that space), the rate is $1,308.

The budget for the department will be reduced by $1,308 (25% of $5,232) as part of our internal allocation process. 

Space Categories

In order to equitably account for the ownership and use of space in our financial formula, we have classified our 1100+ individual spaces into four categories.  The categorization of each space is an admittedly imperfect process which is refined each year*.  A detailed accounting of space use is provided to each department business office annually. 

Below you will find a description of each category. These describe the majority of spaces in the category.

Categories:

Windowed: Office-sized spaces that, through a translucent opening in a wall, receive natural light.  Spaces which have interior windows that receive natural light through a clerestory or atrium are in this category.

Non-windowed: Office-sized spaces in which all or nearly all walls are opaque.

Lab-A: Broad range of spaces that are "labs" for either research or education purposes, categorized here regardless of the presence of windows and regardless of size.  This category also includes all other spaces, such as closets, mini-machine rooms, multi-purpose rooms, and other spaces not categorized elsewhere.

Lab-B: Same as "Lab-A" spaces, except that these spaces are exceptionally undesirable.  Best example is the B-level of NSH, which is subject to periodic flooding.

Please Note: The category of an individual space might be changed, for example, when a windowless space used as a printing/copying center for a department is carpeted, painted, and converted into an office for students or into a conference room.