Wentworth Institute of Technology’s first new academic building in 45 years was recently completed on the university’s Boston campus. The Leers Weinzapfel Associates-designed Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Sciences is a multi-disciplinary facility meant to expand the school’s engineering education.
The four-story, 75,000-sf facility will offer an environment for students of biology, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and biological engineering to collaborate. The building’s ground floor houses an additive manufacturing lab and Accelerate, an interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial project-based program. Floors two through four include laboratories, student learning and meeting spaces, offices, and support/storage space.
The campus is vulnerable to flooding, so the Center’s ground floor was built two feet above current grade and the design minimized the systems equipment in the basement. Sustainability elements include a highly-efficient thermal envelope that includes sun shading on the east, south, and west facades, and mechanical equipment designed for maximum efficiency. The facility is targeting Leed Silver certification.
See Also: ‘One Harvard’ initiative injects new life into campus center
The Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Sciences opened in November 2018.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Living and Learning Center, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences
From its humble beginnings as a tiny pharmaceutical college founded by 14 Boston pharmacists, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences has grown to become the largest school of its kind in the U.S. For more than 175 years, MCPHS operated solely in Boston, on a quaint, 2,500-student campus in the heart of the city's famed Longwood Medical and Academic Area.
| Aug 11, 2010
Giants 300 University Report
University construction spending is 13% higher than a year ago—mostly for residence halls and infrastructure on public campuses—and is expected to slip less than 5% over the next two years. However, the value of starts dropped about 10% in recent months and will not return to the 2007–08 peak for about two years.
| Aug 11, 2010
Team Tames Impossible Site
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation's oldest technology university, has long prided itself on its state-of-the-art design and engineering curriculum. Several years ago, to call attention to its equally estimable media and performing arts programs, RPI commissioned British architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw to design the Curtis R.
| Aug 11, 2010
Setting the Green Standard For Community Colleges
“Ohlone College Newark Campus Is the Greenest College in the World!” That bold statement was the official tagline of the festivities surrounding the August 2008 grand opening of Ohlone College's LEED Platinum Newark (Calif.) Center for Health Sciences and Technology. The 130,000-sf, $58 million community college facility stacks up against some of the greenest college buildings in th...
| Aug 11, 2010
University of Arizona College of Medicine
The hope was that a complete restoration and modernization would bring life back to three neoclassic beauties that formerly served as Phoenix Union High School—but time had not treated them kindly. Built in 1911, one year before Arizona became the country's 48th state, the historic high school buildings endured nearly a century of wear and tear and suffered major water damage and years of...
| Aug 11, 2010
Cronkite Communication School Speaks to Phoenix Redevelopment
The city of Phoenix has sprawling suburbs, but its outward expansion caused the downtown core to stagnate—a problem not uncommon to other major metropolitan areas. Reviving the city became a hotbed issue for Mayor Phil Gordon, who envisioned a vibrant downtown that offered opportunities for living, working, learning, and playing.
