All members of the campus community are invited to join the celebration next week at the dedication of the first major academic building constructed for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 15 years.
Campus faculty, staff and students and invited guests will gather from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday for the grand opening of the new Plant and Environmental Sciences Building. The event will include lab tours, interactive research demonstrations in the courtyard and, at 11:30 a.m., a dedication ceremony topped off by a tree planting.
Located between Hunt and Veihmeyer halls, northwest of the Memorial Union, the new three-story building houses researchers from the departments of Agronomy and Range Science; Land, Air and Water Resources; Environmental Science and Policy; and Environ-mental Horticulture.
Research in the building covers a broad spectrum of disciplines ranging from plant science, to water science to soil science.
"The new Plant and Environ-mental Sciences building is a giant leap forward in our drive to improve facilities and make them reflect our worldwide leadership in the plant and environmental sciences," said Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. "This new facility enables us to cluster our plant and environmental scientists in the same building and reap the benefits of synergy across many disciplines."
The $43 million, 125,060-square-foot building has three levels, plus a partial basement for electrical and mechanical equipment. It houses 54 laboratories for teaching and research, as well as offices for faculty, staff and administration. Unlike older campus laboratories, the new labs are equipped to maintain both temperature and air pressure while experiments are being conducted.
Cement planter boxes in the courtyard south of the building display various California crops and soil samples representative of areas ranging from the Sierra to the sea.
Construction on the building began in June 1999 and was completed in January of this year. The building is the first in the United States to use an unbonded braced-frame system, the newest structural steel system designed to resist earthquakes, according to Clayton Halliday of the campus Office of Architects and Engineers. This technology was invented in Japan.
The new Plant and Environmental Sciences Building, like many new facilities on campus, exceeds California energy conservation standards by more than 10 percent by using high-efficiency lights, occupancy sensors and temperature-sensitive air conditioning.