Metcalf Center for Science and Engineering (SCI) is a building owned by

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

named for Arthur G.B. Metcalf. Metcalf founded what would later become the university's

College of Engineering Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education ( bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations tha ...

and served as its chair. He also donated millions of dollars toward the construction of the building. SCI contains offices, classrooms, and laboratories primarily used by the Physics, Chemistry, and Biology Departments of the

College of Arts and Sciences A College of Arts and Sciences or School of Arts and Sciences is most commonly an individual institution or a unit within a university that focuses on instruction of the liberal arts and pure sciences, although they frequently include programs and ...

. Its facilities are also used for biomedical research. Boston University boasts that there is a waiting list for researchers wanting to conduct research in the building. The edifice was constructed out of three existing industrial buildings in 1983 when John Silber was Boston University's president. The building's modern atrium was originally a spacing between two of the original buildings. The building underwent a $25 million replacement of its ventilation system in 2008, resulting in a two-story HVAC unit being installed on the building's roof. The original unit installed in 1983 was inadequate for the size of the building, particularly in dealing with the moisture of ambient air on hot summer days. The atrium of the building has large green pipes running the height of the building which connect to the HVAC. The exposed nature of these pipes recalls the architectural movement of utilitarian

Structural Expressionism High-tech architecture, also known as structural expressionism, is a type of late modernist architecture that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high tech industry and technology into building design. High-tech architecture grew fro ...

akin to

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in Paris. The building is set back from the street by a

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

plaza, formerly a parking lot, which includes rectangular patches of grass. A metal sculpture in front is titled "Explosion". Previously, in the place of the building, at the same address, had been a converted parking garage, the basement of which had been a music venue known as

the Psychedelic Supermarket The Psychedelic Supermarket was an underground music venue in Boston, Massachusetts, that was open in the 1960s, and became one of the core establishments of the city's psychedelic rock scene. It stood at 590 Commonwealth Avenue inside a parking g ...

. The venue had had such bands as

Cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

(1967), the

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...

(1967),

Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and musician. One of the most successful and widely known Rock music, rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage ...

(1968), and the

Moody Blues Moody may refer to: Places * Moody, Alabama, U.S. * Moody, Indiana, U.S. * Moody, Missouri, U.S. * Moody, Texas, U.S. * Moody County, South Dakota, U.S. * Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada * Hundred of Moody, a cadastral division in South A ...

(1968).

References

{{Boston University Buildings at Boston University