Right by the Chemistry Barn, used to be a storage facility. This plan has been in the works for a while because I remember hearing about this while I was on campus. Ground breaks TODAY at 11 am. Exciting times in Storrs!
When UConn's new Engineering and Science Building opens this fall, it will provide room for some of the university's fastest growing research fields – systems genomics, biomedical sciences, robotics, cyber-physical systems (think drones) and virtual reality technology.
The five-story building, under construction since September 2015, is approximately 75 percent complete, according to Brian Gore, UConn's director of infrastructure and program management. Researchers will move in to the new space this summer, beginning in July.
Located behind Student Health Services and the Chemistry building in North Campus, the Engineering and Science Building will be the first structure on the Storrs campus to utilize an "open lab" concept for research. The shared research space and open floor plan is intended to make it easier for scientists from different disciplines to collaborate, fostering innovation.
The new structure also gives scientists access to a high-speed broadband network that delivers the capacity they need to process large amounts of data quickly – a necessity in many research fields today.
Noting the juxtaposition of the new Engineering and Science Building' brightly lit against dimly or unlit neighboring buildings, surely no intentional symbolism exists.
I noticed that too. There was a recent UConn master plan, that talked about using similar architectural styles to create "a sense of place" on campus. Like most master plans, it was ignored just a few years later. Still, the new buliding looks nice enough.
I had a friend who, at my recommendation, took his girls AAU team up to woman's game at Gampel. He had never been on campus and came away impressed. He said UConn is what a campus "should look like" with "all the brick buildings." I thought that was an interesting impression.