Sculpture crowns new building

Walking into the new Engineering Centers Building, it’s impossible to miss the genius of R. Buckminster Fuller.

Hanging overhead in the building’s atrium is a 500-pound stainless-steel- and-wire sculpture called “Sixty Strut Tensegrity Sphere,” created by the prolific artist and inventor. The piece is considered among the most spectacular of Fuller’s works to illustrate the concept of tensegrity, a structural-relationship principle based on balancing forces of tension and compression.

The sculpture was donated to the College of Engineering by the family of Blair “Bud” Temkin, an alumnus and chemical engineer who died in 1998.

The new facility, which was dedicated Oct. 18, is the college’s first completely new building in 30 years. Key areas are designated for student projects and activities, providing space both for individual and team-project construction, and presentation. Engineering student organization offices share meeting space, a move designed to encourage interaction among groups.

Also housed in the building are Engineering Career Services, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technical Communications and a myriad of engineering research centers that formerly were located throughout — and in some cases off — the campus.

Paul Peercy, dean of engineering, says a key objective in planning the building was “creating the best-possible educational experience for our students.”

“It is designed to make interdisciplinary interactions between faculty and students much easier,” he adds. “Since many exciting advances in engineering science take place in the boundaries between disciplines, we expect this space to become a model for optimal research interaction.”

The building features an 11,000-square-foot terrazzo floor, funded by the Wisconsin Percent for Art Program. Artist Scott Parsons’ design fuses art, science and technology, incorporating an eclectic set of more than 50 images — among them, circuits, an automobile transmission, a crystal array and a Native American symbol — into his multicolored masterpiece.

The college broke ground for the 204,000-square-foot, $53.4 million building in June 2000. Funding was provided by a public-private partnership among the state of Wisconsin, the college’s alumni and friends, and the Vilas Trust.