On October 29, 2014 the University of Waterloo Board of Governors approved the construction of Engineering 7 (E7). The $88-million dollar building will vastly expand student space on campus as well as provide much needed classrooms for UW’s rapidly expanding Engineering programs. With 230 000-square-feet of floor space, E7 will provide seven lecture halls, tutorial rooms, and design garage space for undergraduate students, in particular providing more space for fourth year capstone design projects.
This Monday November 10, 2014, Waterloo Engineering students voted yes to support a $25 term fee to contribute $1 million dollars towards E7. The support of students is highly valued by Pearl Sullivan, Dean of Engineering, her team, and the University, who have been working hard to raise funds from alumni and companies to reach the minimum amount required to start construction. The student donation, an optional $25 during school terms for 4-5 years, starting after the completion of the building, will be an important sign to potential sponsors that students are also in support of the new space and are willing to contribute to its construction.The positive outcome of this vote does not mean we will definitely be contributing to E7 once it has been completed. A referendum using the same question will take place among students on term in Winter 2015. Only after students on both the A and B Societies vote yes to contribute to the new building will the student donation become official.
The one million dollar student donation will allow students to name a 288 square meter quiet study space for which the true cost of construction is $ 2.3 million. Dean Sullivan shared her vision for a “space where students will be empowered to design and fill as they wish. They can name it and call it their own. In fact, while student spaces are somewhat influenced by the student body, [students] will have a direct influence on this specific new study space in E7 …It’s not about the $1 million dollars, it’s about the vision.”
The new building is part of an overarching vision that will see Waterloo Engineering continue to grow while continuing to provide outstanding education at the undergraduate level. “Engineering 7 is a promise of the future. The design of the infrastructure will help us realize the future of engineering education,” Dean Sullivan shared with excitement. That future will eventually add as many as 1500 more engineering undergraduate students for a total enrollment of 8500. Education should inspire and support all engineering students to pursue their passion – whether in their workplace, in research or in entrepreneurship. The heart of the building is to provide a learning environment that continues to break the mold through innovation.
New spaces from E7 will be aimed at providing a learning environment where students don’t just learn from books in the classroom, but also have the opportunity to apply those skills to engineering problems from the beginning. This is the idea behind the Engineering Ideas Clinic™, a new faculty teaching innovation which will be housed in E7. To facilitate more traditional class studies, E7 will feature tiered classrooms designed to hold 135 – 140 students, garage space for design projects, quiet study space, and a new expanded machine shop. A two story designated ‘flight center’ will even be available to students for testing aerial and autonomous robots. Many resources will be consolidated into the new building, including administration offices which will be conveniently located on the seventh floor and the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre.
Most importantly, E7 is a building focused on student needs. The intention is for E7 to serve as a new student social hub. There will be a stage for musical performances and start-up pitches, and rooms for Engineering Society Initiatives like RidgidWare. An event space will even include kitchen facilities. It was felt that space for students to learn and socialize was important to fostering strong, well rounded graduates who will be the leaders of tomorrow. There were requests for ground floor research lab space, but they were not granted so more student space would be possible. Prioritizing social areas is opposite to the current trend in many other universities, where research activities are usually held in higher priority over undergraduate student space.
The new E7 building will be constructed between E5 and E6 where there is currently a parking lot. A glass atrium and elevated pedestrian walkways will connect E5 to E7, preventing a potential wind tunnel between the two buildings. A third floor enclosed walk way will also be constructed connecting E7 to E6, creating an indoor route between all engineering buildings. Groundbreaking for Engineering 7 is targeted to take place in October 2015 with the project to be fully completed by September 2018.
The past 20 years have seen considerable expansion in the size of the Engineering Faculty, but the growth of physical space seriously lagged behind undergraduate and graduate student enrollment growth. The relatively recent addition of programs like Mechatronics, Management and Biomedical, as well as the expansion of other programs to include more students have put a severe strain on resources. This necessitated the rapid addition of new buildings based on prioritized needs. Engineering 5 (E5) was constructed first because of the pressing need for additional classrooms, graduate student offices, and proper garage space for student teams. Engineering 6 was built after that because the nearly sixty-year old Doug Wright Engineering building (DWE) required extensive renovations to meet health and safety standards and provide for the needs of modern research labs (to allow for continuity as DWE was renovated after the construction of E6). With Engineering 7, the goal is to provide student space for the growing student body, namely the new Biomedical Engineering and the expanded Mechatronics Engineering programs. Consolidating classes means cohorts will be near other students in their program, lab space, and staff support for their programs. An expanded machine shop will also alleviate scheduling issues that have seen students lining up as early as 6 am because of the 30 person occupancy limit at any one time. Additionally, moving the administration offices to E7 will free up space in CPH for the Management Engineering program, while additional Engineering classrooms will allow other Faculties to use RCH.
For many of us the optional fee will not begin until after we have graduated. This building, and the ideas born within it, will be something we will only get to experience second hand. However, the vision that it represents will continue to make ripples for the next generations of undergraduates, student innovations in research and garage spaces, and co-op employers well into the future.
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