Amherst College New Science Center Receives 2020 AIA Education Facility Design Award

We are pleased to announce that the New Science Center at Amherst College has earned an AIA Education Facility Design Award of Merit. 

Charged with promoting interaction among students in the sciences, across departments and with the campus, the New Science Center at Amherst College creates an open and accessible learning environment for the entire campus community.

From overall organization to detailing, the design promotes transparency and interaction. The program is organized into five building elements, two high energy laboratory wings tucked into the hillside along the east edge of the site and three pavilions of lower intensity program set in the landscape to the west, towards campus. The lab wings and pavilions open to a glass enclosed commons promoting a community of science. The activity within the science center is visible to the College at large through the glass walls of the commons.

The project embodies the College’s mission to ensure that science education and research are at the core of a balanced liberal arts education. With its dramatic Commons open to the bucolic landscape, the interior spaces of education and socialization enliven the formerly marginalized campus precinct. Science community events are now public, campus-wide celebrations. The New Science Center has immediately assumed a central place in the campus social fabric.

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Amherst is Open for Science