Where Science, Art, and Technology Meet in Tech Square
Innovation often occurs at the boundaries where disciplines meet.
At Nobel Week Dialogue in 2026, Frances Arnold, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018, spoke about bridging expertise between scientific fields: “I’ve seen that the biggest opportunities for science lie at the interfaces.”
Given this, how can practitioners from different disciplines best collaborate to share ideas, ask new questions, and explore new solutions?
Just as Arnold referenced collaboration among scientific fields, this extends into where other disciplines meet, such as between the arts and sciences.
Examining science and art collaborations through a social psychology lens reveals the need for Third Spaces; a 2025 publication in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM) explores how shared understanding, new norms, and common ground can be found among diverse practitioners. The paper’s authors, Karleigh Groves, Fanuel J. Muindi, and Arianna Zuanazzi, explored SciArt Third Spaces using social psychology theories to study these group dynamics.
As a result, the authors shared a framework on how people from different disciplines can come together in new spaces to conduct interdisciplinary work. From SciArt to other collaborative endeavors, Tech Square has a variety of organizations that are innovating at and between the boundaries of fields.
Third Spaces Create Common Ground
In this publication, the authors highlight that SciArt Third Spaces are physical or virtual places that establish new interactions, identities, and environments for diverse practitioners, moving beyond purely discipline-specific identities and institutionalized environments.
When SciArt Third Spaces provide new common ground for artists and scientists to practice their work, these practitioners can collaborate, conduct research, and innovate outside of previously existing group dynamics and structural frameworks.
The core elements of these interdisciplinary SciArt Third Spaces highlighted in the paper are those that can foster balanced interactions, build a shared group identity, establish group norms and common language among specialists, and explore new group dynamics.
The authors provide a framework for those seeking to establish interdisciplinary SciArt Third Spaces, including gaining an understanding of the obstacles to collaboration, creating a meeting space independent of institutionalized environments, establishing new norms and guidelines, cultivating a shared group identity, and defining collective aims and future strategies.
Exploring SciArt Third Spaces in Tech Square
Walking into the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology’s (IPaT) Craft Lab in Technology Square Research Building (TSRB), you are met with a welcoming space filled with supplies, equipment, and walkways between crafting tables that promote interactions. “This was central to the design of the Craft Lab,” said Tim Trent, manager of IPaT’s Innovation Labs.
“For example, a professor with fashion experience in Italy was walking through the Craft Lab while someone was working on a costume and was able to provide support and ideas,” said Trent.
Trent added, “In the Craft Lab, the equipment, fabrics, supplies, and materials act as a constant backdrop for those in the space. This creates a mindset that when you’re in here working, this is a place where things get created.”
When reflecting on the IPaT Craft Lab as a SciArt Third Space that allows people to explore new ideas and promote collaborative group dynamics, Trent, who has a MS in Human-Computer Interaction and a graduate certificate in Management of Technology from Georgia Tech, added, “You will have a computer scientist working next to a designer, next to an electrical engineer, and it creates this synergy.”
Part of Trent’s design philosophy for the Craft Lab was to place a mix of tools that may serve different audiences, such as 3D printers and sewing machines, next to each other to spark curiosity about what others are working on and inspire someone to try something new. “You are adding tools to your toolbelt when you learn something new. Even if you don’t think you will use it, you will have this knowledge of what you could do, and it changes your world,” said Trent on the impact of being exposed to new ideas, tools, and ways of crafting.
“By sharing the same space, makers are able to exchange ideas and help each other problem-solve,” said Trent, who shared that in the Craft Lab people from IPaT, Industrial Design, Interactive Computing, Digital Media, and Electrical Engineering, among others from across Georgia Tech, have created art projects, attended courses, designed products for startups, and crafted Halloween costumes working side by side and sharing ideas.
Broader Collaborative Examples
Using the framework for SciArt Third Spaces, which provides common ground between disciplines, as described in the authors’ article, one can imagine how it can also be applied to foster collaboration across a variety of fields.
Tech Square has many such interdisciplinary centers; in addition to the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), there is the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS), SimTigrate Design Center, the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics (CURA), and the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE). Each of these brings together collaborators from across Georgia Tech and the broader community to work together on innovative solutions through sharing expertise and a vision for the future.
Related to the part of the authors’ framework that mentions interdisciplinary third spaces defining new collective aims, or common goals, one can look to the SimTigrate Design Center in TSRB, which brings practitioners together to conduct evidence-based research on the future of healthcare environments. At SimTigrate Design Center, instead of different researchers looking at design problems from only their own perspectives, they can directly share their observations and expertise with those with other areas of expertise.
“What’s really important is that by combining our unique perspectives and expertise on healthcare efficiency, we are now tackling shared challenges together to deliver integrated, system-driven, and evidence-based solutions,” said Dr. Hui Cai, SimTigrate Design Center’s Executive Director and Professor of Architecture at Georgia Tech.
Tech Square’s proximity to Georgia Tech, Midtown, and various research, startup, and business organizations provides this innovation ecosystem community an opportunity to explore what happens when people with different interests and areas of expertise come together to create something new. If you’re looking to work with people with different backgrounds, whether in one of the existing third spaces in the neighborhood or thinking about creating a new one, you can look to Maestro for Tech Square to find your next collaborator to help you explore the boundaries of what is possible.