Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Building project critical for ME department's future

Artist's rendition of the future Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Building (south-side view) (36K JPG)

Ask anyone who teaches, shares lab space, or attends classes in the Mechanical Engineering Building and they'll tell you that renovating and expanding the building will be an important investment in the future.

The building now houses two of the College of Engineering's largest departments — mechanical and industrial engineering. The quality of academic and research facilities is very important for recruiting new faculty members, college officials say. The current building, erected more than 70 years ago, does not provide sufficient quality space.

Assistant Professor Nicola Ferrier says that classrooms lacking the necessary technological infrastructure are limiting instructors' ability to teach cutting-edge concepts.

And attracting the best faculty and students requires flexible laboratory space, the latest computer technology and the infrastructure to support both, says Mechanical Engineering Professor and Chair Neil Duffie. "Our current structure just doesn't really allow that," he says.

To study how new buildings at other universities successfully meet evolving needs, Dean Paul Peercy and the building's design team visited Georgia Institute of Technology, which has erected five new mechanical and industrial engineering buildings within the past 15 years. "Their most recent building is a model of flexible, reconfigurable space that can be reconfigured at low cost to meet the changing needs of mechanical and industrial engineering," says Peercy. "And we're very much modeling our building and new facilities on that concept."

When the project is finished, the college's Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Building will be a new structure housed within the historic façade. In the first phase, "Sawtooth" occupants will take up temporary residency in the new Engineering Centers Building while crews demolish that area in the center of the building and erect a four-story addition in its place. That new space (including a basement) will provide surge space for occupants displaced by phase two of the project, which will gut the rest of the building and outfit it with state-of-the-art labs and classrooms.

Currently the building team is reviewing the architectural design and is awaiting detailed final drawings. Duffie, a member of the team, says the new structure will meet the college's needs for many years to come. "The young faculty of today — we don't know what directions they're going to take and what the new technologies are going to be," he says. "But what we are confident of is that this building will serve them."