Ground was broken in May 1992 for the $28.4 million building by the UT-REMOTEC Robot and dignitaries. The first occupants moved into labs in 1994, and the building was dedicated June 19, 1997. The building provides specialized research space for disciplines in the sciences and engineering. It connects the Earth and Planetary Sciences Building and Dabney/Buehler Hall.
Architects Barber and McMurry found, early in the designing of the facility, that the funds available for actual construction were insufficient to build a structure that would accommodate the functions programmed for it because of the need for large amounts of space for mechanical functions. UT President Joe Johnson, Chancellor John Quinn, and the deans of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Engineering had to choose whether to take the money earmarked for equipping the building and use it to build a larger building or to build a smaller building that was fully equipped. The unanimous choice was to build the building as large as possible with all funds available.
This building is the largest research facility to receive State funds and was the first academic facility for which the State required UT to issue and repay bonds. The university assumed $4 million of indebtedness for the facility, with the State paying the lion’s share—recognizing that for a comprehensive research university, research is part of the academic program of instruction for undergraduate and graduate students. The building itself was equipped to serve as an engineering laboratory, by embedding 50 sensors in the building’s foundation, walls, and supports that could be used to monitor structural pressures and movement caused by forces such as wind, construction, and earthquakes, although the capacity for research on the building was subsequently not utilized.
The building is on the site of the former Science Hall, razed in 1967.