State-of-The-Art Sciences, Math Building Opens At UB, Makes North Campus A Nexus For The Sciences

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The new $45-million Natural Sciences and Mathematics Building on the University at Buffalo North (Amherst) Campus seems a contradiction in terms.

Its futuristic lecture halls allow professors to transcend geography, to instantaneously tap into remote databases via the Internet and use the information superhighway to bring a world of previously inaccessible material and graphics into the classroom.

Yet the complex also provides a strong sense of neighborhood, and its opening this fall is the first step in an effort to bring the departments in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics to one site for the first time in years. Researchers in different, but related disciplines now only have to go across the hall, not across town, to share discoveries and ideas.

The 128 silver ventilation cones on its roof -- which provide each lab in the eight-story building with outside ventilation -- make the building look like the largest birthday cake on campus.

Yet its emphasis on utilization of natural light and mixing of dark- and light-colored brick on its exterior represent what one UB official calls "a change in the campus architectural vocabulary."

The new complex consists of a two-story lecture hall/classroom facility and an eight-story research building.

The research building is the home of the Department of Chemistry, formerly housed on the South (Main Street) Campus, and the Department of Geology, formerly on the old Ridge Lea Campus.

However, it's only a temporary home for the Department of Geology, which will move into a new building to be built adjacent to the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Building, once a second stage of construction is completed in 1998-99. That building also will house the Department of Computer Science, now in Bell Hall on the North campus, and the Department of Mathematics, currently on the South Campus.

"I am delighted with the completion and occupancy of the beautiful, new 280,000 gross-square-foot lecture hall, classroom and research complex," said Joseph Tufariello, Ph.D., dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

"The new eight-story building is a well-equipped, modern facility that will encourage the research development of both chemistry and geology," he added. "When the second-phase science building is completed, all of the departments comprising the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics will be located on the North Campus, in close proximity, for the first time in many years."

The two-story classroom/lecture hall facility contains five lecture halls, the capacities of which range from 150-350 seats, and five classrooms, each with a 90-seat capacity.

Already, the new complex has changed the ways that UB students learn, professors teach and scientists do research.

Students -- even those who are not majors -- have hands-on opportunities to do scientific research with the same state-of-the-art instruments that their professors use.

Classrooms and lecture halls are outfitted with equipment that includes custom-designed teaching stations housing microcomputers or computer workstations, large-screen, ceiling-mounted projectors and color video-camera platforms. Also standard for the lecture halls are CD-ROM and VHS videotape capabilities and a color visualizer that can project three-dimensional images.

Lectures are no longer limited by the availability of equipment or the four walls of the classroom; the world becomes the learning space. Professors can access a file through the Internet and then project the image of that file, including charts and graphs, on a movie screen for the whole class to see. Three-dimensional models of molecules can be made to rotate on-screen. Video cameras can transform laboratory demonstrations into larger-than-life experiences, even for students who opt to sit in the last row of the lecture hall.

The sophisticated computer facilities also are expected to help UB become more active in distance learning, Tufariello said.

New scientific equipment that will be housed in the research complex includes new spectrometers, featuring nuclear-magnetic-resonance and mass spectrometers, and electron-spin-resonance spectrometers, which aid in the determination of the structure of complex molecules. There also is a cleanroom for developing sensitive, photonics materials.

However, one of the most important benefits of the state-of-the-art complex is decidedly and deliberately low-tech.

"The biggest single change is that the department is no longer isolated," said Jerome Keister, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Chemistry. "It makes for much better interactions for both faculty and students."

Michael Sheridan, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Geology, couldn't agree more.

"For the first time in 25 years, the Department of Geology is on the main campus of the university, in modern facilities, with everybody working together," he said. "Our new labs are giving us efficiencies we've never seen before."

Features of the eight-story complex include a main service corridor for research labs, so that servicing can be done with a minimum of disruption to scientific work. To enhance safety, each of the 128 labs has its own dedicated fan, exhaust and duct system, corresponding to one of the silver ventilation cones on the building's roof.

Unlike some of the older buildings on the North Campus, the new complex takes advantage of natural light. Research labs, classrooms and corridors have large windows; office doors are marked by portholes, and each floor in the research building has a glass-enclosed study alcove with built-in seating.

"The natural-sciences building is part of a change in the campus architectural vocabulary," said Ronald Nayler, associate vice president for university facilities.

He said that like other new buildings on the campus, such as the 2-year-old Student Union and the new Center for the Arts, the sciences building, featuring dark- and light-colored brick on its exterior, is a change from the standard brown-brick design that marked earlier construction.

The building was constructed by Frank L. Ciminelli Construction Co. of Buffalo and its joint-venture partner, Walbridge Aldinger Co. of Detroit. It was designed by the architectural firm of Davis, Brody and Associates. Construction began in early 1991 and was completed this spring.