A new space for a new generation of leaders
Opened in spring 2025, the Grimes Engineering Center Is providing a space like no other on campus, one that puts innovation, entrepreneurship, collaboration, and inclusion at its core for future leaders. Overlooking Memorial Glade, the building — the “heart” of Berkeley Engineering — will serve as a central hub for the north side of campus, hosting academic and social events in addition to advising, tutoring, and career services. Its open, light-filled design invites connections and teamwork, fostering the type of transformative educational experiences that will empower students to become future leaders who will make a better world for all.
“When you think about the story of the Grimes Engineering Center, what do you want future students to see? With its glass walls, people can look inside and see students being students, working on class projects together, or just studying. Making those activities visible helps prospective students imagine what it means to be a Berkeley engineer.” — Clara Hung ’25, EECS, former president of the Society of Women Engineers
Students, faculty, staff, and key benefactors came together on April 21, 2025, to celebrate the opening of the Grimes Engineering Center, a new hub on the north side of campus, just two years after its groundbreaking.
Rising three floors and encompassing 83,460 gross square feet, the new center is built on top of the existing foundation and partially embedded structure of the former Bechtel Engineering Center. This adaptive reuse and the exposed structural system will inspire students.
The College of Engineering celebrated the groundbreaking for the Grimes Engineering Center in 2023, amid cheers from hundreds of benefactors, staff, faculty, and students.
“You have not only the tremendous gratitude of the thousands of students who will inhabit this space, but also the extended gratitude of the millions, literal millions, of people whose lives will be improved by the breakthroughs inspired in this transcendent edifice with a supremely worthy purpose.” — Michael Grimes ’87 (EECS)