The renovation and expansion of the Hamilton College science facilities provides the campus with an integrated science center that houses the departments of biology, chemistry, geosciences, physics, and psychology, and the faculty with specialties in archaeology. The complex has:

• 56 offices for faculty and staff
  
• 48 teaching laboratories
  
• 53 research laboratories
  
• 67 support rooms
  
• student study areas
  
• 11 classrooms
  

Background

The planning for the construction project began in 1996, and initial meetings of science department chairs with Bobby Fong (former dean of the faculty) led to a draft of a mission statement for the sciences. Over the next year, two teams of faculty members and administrators attended Project Kaleidoscope workshops on science facilities. In 1997, Dean Fong selected a faculty coordinator for the project, and the faculty presented a case statement stating the needs for new facilities. During the same year, a Trustee Subcommittee on Science Facilities and an on-campus committee of faculty members and administrators began deliberations. Programming was accomplished during this time with Dober, Lidsky, Craig and Associates as consultants. Groups of faculty, administrators and trustees visited over 15 campuses with new or renovated science buildings. During the 1999-2000 academic year, a committee consisting of trustees, administrators, faculty, and students selected Einhorn Yaffee Prescott as the architectural firm for the project. Conceptual design work began during the 2000-2001 academic year. The first phase of the project was finished in June 2004, and the entire complex was completed in September 2005.

About the Science Center
Unique characteristics of the design of this building include:

complete faculty involvement in laboratory and classroom design

an open approach to make science activity visible

four different types of student public/study area: enclosed small rooms, common rooms, open study areas and the atrium

wireless computer capability throughout the building as well as 1,300 wired network jacks

an organization with teaching labs on one side of the hallway and research labs on the other, organized "communities" to maximize efficiency for access to lab and support areas

"atriette" stairway areas providing vertical connections between disciplines More ...