WELCOME T0 FORD HALL
2020 Brings a New Home for SMU Guildhall
In 2020 , SMU Guildhall moved from the SMU-in-Plano campus to the new Gerald J . Ford Hall for Research and Innovation . Located on SMU ' s main Dallas campus , the 50,000-square-foot state-of-the-art Ford Hall was built to be an interdisciplinary , collaborative research hub to " equip faculty , students and industry partners with tools and resources to collaborate , solve complex problems and power new enterprises in the digital world of today and tomorrow ."
Calling Ford Hall home is SMU Guildhall , the AT & T Center for Virtualization , the Center for Research Computing , the Data Science Institute , the Deadman College Interdisciplinary Institute , and the Research and Data Science Hub .
Ford Hall was specially designed to optimize our unique industry-driven curriculum in a game studio environment . As our team-based approach mirrors the structure of a real game studio , so do our project studios and classroom spaces . There are 37 research game labs and game studios dedicated to SMU Guildhall , and a shared Visualization Lab . Each dedicated Guildhall lab was architected to be flexible and to enhance teambased project learning . This includes no fixed furniture , movable walls , and numerous digital display devices . There are plentiful power outlets , and wired data ports are always close .
The game studios range in size , from supporting fourperson teams to a large 70-person team . After a lab is assigned to a student game team , the team “ owns ” the space and does not share the studio with other students . This allows the team to create an environment that best supports their development style . They are encouraged to move furniture and equipment to enhance their methodology . For example , teams post concept art , the games pillars , and create scrum burn-down lists on the walls and TVs in every room . This provides clear communication to the whole where they are going and
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