When Colorado artist Scott Parsons began gathering design ideas for the floor in the Engineering Centers Building, he began by reading about physics-chaos theory, information theory, linear dynamics and complex systems. “I thought about the similarities between the work of scientists and artists,” he said during a visit to campus.

His brain brimming with the art of science, Parsons devised a colorful, 11,000-square-foot terrazzo “canvas,” a patchwork of scientific, technological and artistic images. His eclectic set of more than 50 images included a photo of a crystal array, an image of a car’s transmission, a fractal and a Native American pattern that recalls the area’s history.

The terrazzo floor will be a mosaic surface made by embedding marble or granite chips in mortar, allowing the mortar to harden and then grinding and polishing the surface. During the two months in which they create the floor, local contractors will lay eight colors of terrazzo in the building’s atrium and three main hallways.

Commissioned by the Wisconsin Arts Board under the state’s Percent for Art program.

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