Inventing a New Typology to Stimulate Entrepreneurship

The Pierre Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, at the University of Utah, is the largest entrepreneurial center of its kind in the United States, containing a “student garage” - a flexible 20,000 sf making/planning/hacking space - and housing for 400 students ranging from freshman to graduate level.

This living-learning environment supports student entrepreneurs by making learning a 24/7 endeavor, in an interactive, interdisciplinary, immersive milieu that engages a range of users, accommodates a diversity of activities, and fosters interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary “mash-ups.” Unlike many innovation centers, the building is designed to foster both digital and analog tinkering to create a framework in which students interact and explore the physical and social relationships between design, human activity, and environment at varying scales. In the year after it opened, 360 student start-ups were successfully launched, more than in the institution’s previous ten years combined.

Lassonde Studios has gained worldwide attention, featured in such publications as New York Time, Fast Company and Bloomberg. It has rapidly become the most sought after residential facility on the University of Utah campus. Those who visit will experience the creative “buzz” of collaborative engagement at all hours.