Construction of new Wold Science & Engineering building to begin

After seven years in the making, Union College's new Peter Irving Wold Science and Engineering Center is nearing the end of the design development phase and will be soon entering the construction document and site preparation phase. Union College officials will present a site plan to the Schenectady Planning Commission next Wednesday, February 18th.

The $18 million, 35,000 square foot building, if approved by the Planning Commission, will be located in the area between Science and Engineering, the F.W. Olin Center, Schaffer Library, and Social Sciences.

The three-storied science and engineering building will be built using $13 million of a $20 million donation, the school's largest alumni gift in its history, given by John Wold ('38) and his wife Jane in 2002.

Wold, a former U.S. Congressman, is a geologist and president of Wold Minerals Company. The building will be named for his father, Peter Wold, who was a professor at Union in the physics department. The college plans to fund the remaining $5 million through a fundraising campaign.

In keeping with the original campus design by French architect Joseph Jacques Ramée in 1814, the facade of the new building will be similar in appearance to Schaffer Library and Social Sciences in that it will have grey stucco and white columns. Additionally, the college will honor the Ramée plan by having the front entrance to the Wold building follow the curve of the colonnade. The building will be connected on the ground level to the Olin Center and will be connected to the Science and Engineering Building on every floor.

According to Doug Klein, who is the Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies and Special Programs as well as a member of the building's steering committee, the new building will fill the void of a central destination for science and engineering in addition to meeting the college's strategic goal to better integrate the sciences and liberal arts.

When completed, the Wold Science and Engineering building will house an interdisciplinary Biochemistry suite consisting of four faculty labs and a teaching lab, environmental science and engineering labs and classrooms, and energy engineering labs. The ground floor will include the Phasor, or acoustics, lab which will be acoustically insulated and will have specialized equipment to study both music and voice acoustics.

In addition, the first floor will house the Aerogel Fabrication and Characterization lab. According to Klein, aerogels are ultra-light substances with "amazing" insulation properties.
The roof will also serve as a laboratory space for energy engineering where students and faculty will be able to study solar, geothermal, and wind energies as well as building energy systems.
"The world needs better conversation between programs and the Wold building will promote conversations across disciplines," Klein added.

Not only will the building contain high-tech laboratories, but also the steering committee intends to have the building act as a continuous laboratory experiment. Plans for the building include lots of temperature, water, and system monitors and sensors. In addition, college officials are working with a "Green Team" and their architects to obtain "LEED Gold" status from the U.S. Green Building Council. Even with financial difficulties Union faces, Klein believes that the College is "committed to achieving LEED Gold status."
Architects are currently investigating various environmentally friendly strategies including the use of geothermal energy, aerogel skylights, and lighting and air-conditioning sensors.
Klein believes that the Wold building will provide the college with much needed research space that will attract both high-quality students and faculty members to Union. The current Science and Engineering building, while effective, was built approximately 45 years ago during a time where undergraduate research was rare.

Besides additional classroom and laboratory spaces, the Wold building will also feature a three-story open-space atrium that will create an alternative space on campus for students and faculty to study, converse, and be educated. The atrium will contain numerous spaces to display student and faculty research and projects.

"The new building will be a crossroads through campus and will be an opportunity for informal learning as people walk through," Klein said.

The first signs of construction on campus, according to Klein, may take place as early as April 2009 with site preparation for the replacement of utilities, electrical services, data lines, and sewer lines. Klein warns, however, that during the 15-month construction process, students and faculty will face inconveniences. The paths leading from the Library area to Olin and Alumni Gym will be closed, as will the tennis courts behind the Schaffer Library. The College is currently developing a website to notify the campus of inconveniences.

The Wold Science and Engineering building is tentatively scheduled to open for a limited number of classes in spring of 2011 and in the summer of 2011 for student and faculty research. The college hopes to open the entire building to the campus in for the 2011 fall term.

Originally published in Union's Concordy on February 12, 2009.