Firm designs 21st-century cyber operation for University of Maryland, College Park

Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects helped the University update its Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students program.

After gaining admittance through a fail-safe card reader entrance, hackers take up offensive positions at computer stations in a glass-enclosed room. Their mission: Launch a successful cyberattack against opponents who are prepared to parry the assault.

The attackers press their campaign. The defenders try to safeguard their system.

As the dust settles on the virtual battlefield, the glass walls between the warring classrooms of students fold away and the combatants compare notes on the fight.

That struggle will play out again and again on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park, in the new headquarters of the Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students program, which was designed by Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects. 

The 4,200-square-foot space on the fourth floor of a 1950s science building has been renovated and outfitted with the latest technology for ACES, whose sponsors include Northrop Grumman, designer of aircraft and cybersecurity systems.

“The purpose was to simulate real cybersecurity attacks where one classroom of students attacks their counterparts on the other side of a glass wall,” explains Peter Schwab, the project Architect.

A 21st-century course of study

The university created the Maryland Cybersecurity Center on campus a decade ago so that students from various academic departments could delve into the realm of cybersecurity. That venture produced the ACES program, and the school asked Murphy & Dittenhafer to design a new, up-to-date home for it.

The program also offers lectures, seminars, workshops, and online courses to the public.

Both classrooms, each with 25 students, have a smart lectern linked to a ceiling-mounted projection screen and camera. Suspended ceiling “clouds” enhance the center’s acoustics.

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Computer stations in the classrooms are hard-wired because wireless connections would be easier to breach.

Unlike the dark subterranean cyber bunkers depicted in movies, the entire space – consisting of the two classrooms, faculty workstations and offices, a conference room, and long counters where students can plug in laptops – is brightened by daylight from windows on three sides and is visible from end to end through glass walls.

Schwab used the design challenge posed by the existing concrete waffle slab ceiling to create a signature appearance for the center. The waffled ceiling, popular in buildings of that vintage, allowed roof pipes to be punched through to channel rainwater to the base of the structure and then outside. The pipes ran vertically through the middle of the academic space, so Schwab had to reroute them across the ceiling.

In doing so, and by leaving the building’s overhead systems and ceiling recesses exposed, he created the counterpoint of a busy industrial look above and a 21st-century cyber operation below.

“All the glass transparency and stainless steel and exposed systems and ducts are meant to be an exciting, high-tech, new industrial-style space,” Schwab says.

After attempting to break into a system or to stave off an attack, students can retreat to a new lounge that M&D designed for the facility.

“The lounge space promotes interaction among students working on projects,” Schwab says. “It will have soft seating like a dream room at Google headquarters, a space where students can be creative and have breakout sessions.”

Center awaits the green light

University officials tell Murphy & Dittenhafer that they look forward to using the state-of-the-art center, which is awaiting the delivery of furniture. But the secure site might remain secured for the foreseeable future, its virtual battleground off-limits.

The status of campus operations for the fall semester remains undetermined in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which caused a lockdown in the spring from which much of the country is just emerging.

University officials say that if the center has its opening in the fall, there would be restrictions on the number of students permitted in the space. Teleconferencing and remote learning likely will come into play for students until they can enter the new environment to hone their cyber skills.

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