A beautiful summer day delivered the perfect backdrop for the topping off ceremony at the Bonney Science Center at Bates College. Topping off ceremonies are always exciting milestones. However, in this instance the symbolic tradition holds greater meaning as an optimistic marker for the future. Especially considering that promising scientific research is critical to help solve the current pandemic.
Bates College’s facilities team, the construction team and team members from Consigli and Payette attended. Michael Bonney and his wife Alison Grott, both proud Bates College alumni who made the lead gift for the center, gave remarks along with Bates President Clayton Spencer.
It is our sincere hope that for the decades to come, the students and faculty who come through [the science center] include the folks who figure out how to deal with our most vexing problems…climate change, the assault on humanity by viruses, and microbes more broadly. And frankly, because this center is located in this campus and our history, also social justice. Because the kids who come through here will have to go through all these other buildings and think about the world differently.
Michael Bonney
Bonney Science Center is an exploration of contemporary expression in deep dialogue with the context of a traditional New England college campus. The new 65,000 square foot building will house Biology, Chemistry and Neuroscience programs and will foster the evolution of science education at the College. It embraces the advanced technologies and interdisciplinary collaboration that characterize bioscience research and teaching. As the first academic building to be built outside the campus core and across a major street, the creative design is critical to establish its identity as part of Bates College’s campus.
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Opening later this year, the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, MA is an essay in the tuning of building façades for performance. The aluminum sunshades that veil the building began as a concept tested by scoring Bristol paper. The team utilized tools from all modalities: paper models, CNC-mills, parametric studies, solar analysis, wind and water simulations and full-scale mock-ups to inform the design and drive energy use down. The ultra-high performance building is tracking a 61% reduction in energy use compared to the 2030 baseline.
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