CRPC'S RICE SITE BREAKS GROUND ON NEW HOME

Early in November 1994, CRPC researchers at Rice University joined nearly 400 faculty, staff, students, and distinguished visitors to witness the groundbreaking of the new 112,000 square-foot, $16.5 million Computational Engineering Building. Slated for occupancy in 1996, this new building will house the CRPC, as well as Rice University's Computer and Information Technology Institute, and the Departments of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics (part of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering will also be housed in the building).

Throughout the building's development, London-based architect John Outram worked closely with Rice faculty and staff to design a building that would allow researchers, students, and visitors to collaborate in an interdisciplinary environment. The result is a building that will, in the words of CRPC Director Ken Kennedy, "facilitate collaboration--with our colleagues and students, with other engineering disciplines, with industry, and with the community."

CRPC Executive Director Linda Torczon and others worked with students from the Rice School/La Escuela Rice (see the October issue of Parallel Computing Research) to build and program computer-controlled robots that would break ground on the new building. Armed with laptops, these children delighted the crowd as they commanded their robots from the groundbreaking dais. Quipped Kennedy, "Several years ago, a well-known Eastern engineering school unveiled its new robotics lab by having robots built by its graduate students break ground. It is a fitting measure of technological advance that we will break ground using robots constructed by students in a K-8 school."

An architect's rendering of a view of the main hall in the upcoming Computational Engineering Building at Rice University. (Image courtesy of Rice News Office)

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