CHENEY — After three years of construction and over $67 million, a state-of-the-art Interdisciplinary Science Center will open this fall on Eastern Washington University’s campus. The 102,000 square foot facility with house teaching laboratories, laboratory support facilities, student study areas, offices, and a 100-seat lecture hall. Each of EWU’s scientific disciplines — biology, chemistry, earth & space science, general science, natural science, and physics — will be supported within the structure.
The initial groundbreaking began on July 23, 2018, after five years of predesign study between 2009 and 2014. The goal behind the implementation of the new site was to “successfully support the university’s scientific exploration.” A Seattle-based firm named LMN Architects designed the building, and the work was contracted by Lydig Construction Inc., out of the Spokane Valley. Funding for the construction was undertaken by the state.
“The design team worked closely with faculty and maintenance staff to embed specimens and teaching tools within the site and building design,” LMN Architects said in a news release. “Close collaboration with botanists and geologists yielded a landscape design that will support their evolving pedagogy with native plants and geologically composed site walls.”
The new facility is a timely upgrade with the national growth of STEM and the marked increase in job opportunities in the field. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic, STEM occupations are anticipated to grow at twice the rate of “the total of all occupations in the next decade,” with an 8% increase by 2029.
As the market booms, faculty are excited about the new opportunities the Interdisciplinary Science Building will provide.
“This new science facility will be a game-changer for EWU’s growing STEM-related programs,” said David Bowman, dean of EWU’s College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (CSTEM) “The modern laboratories in the new building will help our faculty maintain a curriculum at the cutting edge of science and permit student-faculty research that will continue to transform our region.”
The original Science Building was unveiled in 1962 amid the Space Race with the Soviet Union and has remained structurally the same for 59 years. In April, EWU received $45 million from a $6.3 billion capital budget to renovate the Science Building. With entrepreneurial billionaires now launching themselves into orbit, Eastern Washington will return to modernity with a series of new high-tech facilities.
Eastern received funding for the ISC in late January 2018 after the state Legislature finally passed its $4.2 billion 2017-2019 capital budget — a measure held from passage in 2018 due to disagreements between the House and Senate on fixes to a water rights court decision known as Hirst.
Scott Davis can be reached at news@cheneyfreepress.com.
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