Construction begins on Harder and Binns-Merrill halls
Alfred University’s statutory colleges, the School of Art and Design and Inamori School of Engineering, have begun work on multiple campus-wide construction projects--the most visible of these being McGee Pavilion, an extension to Harder Hall.
Work on McGee Pavilion, a $10,000,000, 1700 sq ft addition to Harder Hall, broke ground on Thursday, April 1. New York State Senate, beginning with the efforts of senator Mary McGee and ending with then Senate majority leader Joe Bruno, earmarked money for the addition as part of an agreement brokered by AU patron Kazuo Inamori.
“[Senator McGee] died just as the State was about to award the $10 million dollar earmark to AU. Then Senate President Bruno asked that we commemorate Pat with these funds. Given her many supportive acts on behalf of Alfred, I was pleased to agree. Hence, we used the funds to create the 'McGee Pavilion,'” said AU President Charley Edmondson.
Designed by Ikon.5, McGee Pavilion’s two-story, above-ground face will be made almost completely out of glass. The Pavilion is designed to have three levels, one below ground and two above.
The structure will be expanded to include studio and workspaces, student exhibition space and an area dedicated to integrated arts. The integrated arts suite will include rooms delineated for sound, video, interactive video and editing studios.
“The lower level will extend our ceramics area,” stated School Of Art and Design interim dean Mary McInnes. “The street level will provide an exhibition space for students and the upper level will have a series of 3 studio spaces for our Division of Expanded media.”
In conjunction with McGee Pavilion, the Inamori Museum and Discovery Lab is being developed on the second floor of Binns-Merrill Hall. The project has been designed to mirror the technologies and exhibits of Kazuo Inamori’s Kyoto, Japan based Kyocera Corporation.
Professor LaCourse, head of the AU statutory colleges expounded on the project, stating that the museum and lab will house four to five banks of integrated technology from Kyocera, an electron microscope, an atomic force microscope to view matter at the atomic level, laser and water jet cutting systems and the University’s second rapid prototyping machine, which is basically a three dimensional printer.
Other projects include greater facilitation of glass offerings with the addition of tanks and glory holes, both of which are integral to the glass-making process. Furthermore, all construction is being carried out with environmental sustainability in mind. The goal is to create a positive sustainability example for other universities and research sites by employing new systems, processes, and even switching light bulbs to LED.
LaCourse, fortunately, will not be seeing the projects he began through as statutory department head. He is, as of next semester, returning to the classroom as a professor in the Inamori School of engineering to teach glass and to continue his research in the field.
LaCourse is hoping that once the construction of his projects subsides, AU will earn even more national recognition. He hopes to “make the university a museum and discovery lab [while] enlivening the sciences, particularly biology and engineering.”
As a means to this end, all the construction in Binns-Merrill Hall will be open to anyone willing to take a look at new technologies and learn their many applications. Ultimately, the plan is to open the museum to the area’s surrounding high school students.
