This semester, you will notice some changes to the outside of the building next to the Campus Center as you round the corner on the shuttle bus.
Construction of University Hall(UH), previously named General Academic Building 1, continued during the summer while students were away. Completion of the UH is projected for spring 2016, says Holly Sutherland, Manager of Master Plan and Construction Communications. Once finished, it will be the newest building on campus since the opening of the Integrated Sciences Complex last spring.
Workers covered UH in a grey and brick exterior, and plated parts in copper. They installed a gigantic harbor-facing window. Efforts have focused on the upper floors and moved downwards into the interior. The classrooms are taking shape and the walls are almost all filled in.
The UH will brings arts, sciences, and performing arts departments under its roof, and will add 1,933 classroom seats to the campus. Throughout the floors are dance studios, chemistry labs, a photography critique room, and other specialized facilities. Planners modeled a room for modern pedagogies after the Technology Enabled and Active Learning room at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Curtains in the recital hall will lower to augment acoustics for jazz performances. Other community rooms include a 500-seat lecture hall and an exhibition gallery. A full kitchen outfits the café. Study spaces dot balconies and the main atrium stretches multiple stories.
“[University Hall] is vital in providing the necessary space to meet our growing enrollment and academic offerings. The building’s state-of-the-art classroom spaces, laboratories, and performance areas will truly transform the learning and teaching experience here at [UMass Boston],” reads a quote from Chancellor Keith Motley on a UH informational brochure.
University Hall and Integrated Sciences Complex are components of the 25-year Master Plan, which began in 2007. Another piece is the ongoing Utility Corridor Project, visible as water and electrical pipes joining around the perimeter of the peninsula. The university, state, neighboring institutions and more conceived the Master Plan. Its goal is for UMass Boston to “reach its potential as Boston’s public university,” according to the university website.
University Hall Further Toward Completion
September 4, 2015
Classes overlook the atrium. Students can take the elegantly-named ‘Monumental Staircase’ from the ground floor to the upper levels of the building.
