Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Harvard Sees Completion of New Science Complex

  • By Matt Jones
  • 05/10/21

Harvard University recently saw construction finish on its new Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), located across the Charles River from its main campus in Cambridge, Mass. The complex, designed by Behnisch Architekten, is set to open to students in fall 2021. The eight-story structure covers more than 540,000 square feet and features classrooms, laboratories, collaboration spaces, and more designed to foster interdisciplinary study.

The newest addition to the Allston campus offers street-level makerspaces and teaching labs visible to passersby, increasing engagement with the local community. The lower floors offer classrooms, teaching labs, and amenity spaces—some of which function as fixed-seating classrooms, while others are active-learning spaces designed to allow a wider variety of layouts and activities. The facility will serve as the home to a large part of Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) and welcome researchers and students in fields including robotics, computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering, bioengineering, materials science, and more.

The facility’s upper floors will feature almost 70,000 square feet of wet research lab space for biology, chemistry, physics, optics, and electronics classes and research, as well as about 24,000 square feet of dry research labs for computer science. Flexible lab environments leave room to repurpose various spaces later on as needs change.

The team from Behnisch Architekten, tasked with making the SEC the “healthiest building on the Harvard campus,” created a design that garnered LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge Petal certifications in Materials, Beauty, and Equity. Materials used are free of a specific set of harmful chemicals, comply with the LBC Red List, and conform to the standards of Harvard’s Healthier Building Academy.

The building contains the world’s first hydroformed tensile façade system, reducing solar heat from glazed daylighting openings and using high-comfort radiant systems for indoor climate control. Its water-based heating and cooling systems use one-third of the energy of air-driven systems. The two fast, daylit atria and interior partitions reflect daylight deep into the building’s interior. It also features five acres of roof terraces with vegetation.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Campus Safety Requires Using Every Resource Available

    Across the U.S., school and campus leaders are facing a security landscape that has changed dramatically over the past decade. Incidents on school property have increased in recent years, with several consecutive years setting record totals. According to analysis of data by CNN, dozens of shootings now occur on school grounds annually across K-12 and higher education environments.

  • Secret to Efficient, On-Time School Infrastructure & Modernization Projects is All in the Preparation

    Warmer weather and longer days make summer the ideal time for construction and modernization projects at educational facilities. School boards and construction firms must coordinate effectively to ensure that these projects do not extend even a single day into the school year and impede classroom operation.

  • RIT Saunders College of Business – Lowenthal Hall Addition

    RIT Saunders College of Business – Lowenthal Hall Addition

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. RIT Saunders College of Business's Lowenthal Hall Addition has been recognized with an EDS 2026 Project of Distinction award in the category of New Construction.

  • Planning with Clarity: Using AI to Make Better Campus Decisions, Not Just Better Designs

    Higher education leaders are being asked to make increasingly high-stakes decisions about campus facilities amid greater uncertainty than ever before. Social and economic pressures, shifting enrollment, and evolving learning models compete with growing deferred maintenance needs to strain even the most robust infrastructure budgets.