The Justice

Media Credit: Rachel Corke The new Carl J. Shapiro Science Center has several energy-efficient features for increased sustainability, such as new fume hoods.

Researchers and equipment will be transported into the Carl J. Shapiro Science Center beginning this week, according to Vice President of Capital Projects Dan Feldman; however, science classes will not be moved into the science center until fall semester 2009.

However, Feldman wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that "Phase two of the [Science Complex Renewal Project] has been indefinitely postponed."

Feldman wrote that Phase one is "nearly complete. "Phase one of the master plan for the Science Center includes a major new building with teaching labs on the first two levels, three levels of research space, an atrium and a café," according to the Capital Projects Web site.

"The Phase 2A building, which was schematically designed together with Phase one to ensure complete coordination, is expected to include teaching labs, a large lecture hall and three levels of additional research laboratories," according to the Web site.

The downturn in the economy and donations to the school has slowed the University's plan to make up the projected $74 million in gifts for the Science Center, as the school has received less than it predicted in fundraising and grants due to the troubled economy, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French said at a Feb. 5 press conference for campus media.

According to the Capital Projects Web site, two floors of the new center will be devoted to biology and chemistry teaching labs and classrooms; the other three floors will contain new research facilities.

The center will be connected to the existing Rosenstiel and Edison-Lecks science buildings and will replace the two oldest science buildings, Friedland and Kalman, which are slated to be razed this summer, according to the Web site.

"The new Carl J. Shapiro Science Center is the largest and most technically complex single project we have completed in the current 'building boom' that has been underway at Brandeis since the late 1990s," Feldman wrote in an e-mail to the Justice.

"The Shapiro Science Center is a great step forward for science facilities at Brandeis-truly a 21st century building," he wrote.

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