Chemistry Building

Excerpts from a press release announcing the call for tenders for the new chemistry building, dated 22 December, 1966

...

The new chemistry building will be the first of a group of buildings forming a science complex which will be located on the east side of the Otonabee River. A footbridge will connect the science complex with the University library and college buildings on the west bank of the river. The chemistry building will be located beyond the existing railway, immediately adjacent to a proposed physics building, and will eventually be surrounded by a number of residential and teaching colleges also to be located on the east bank of the river.

Since the colleges at Trent University play a major role in instruction, the chemistry building will be conveniently accessible to the residential colleges on the Nassau campus and much of the theoretical instruction in the sciences will take place within the colleges. The chemistry building will be the centre for practical instruction in chemistry and will provide laboratory facilities for research by graduate students and faculty members.

Facilities in the new chemistry building will include a seminar room mainly for the use of graduate students and a 250-seat lecture theatre with an adjoining preparation room and television studio. Teaching laboratories in the new building are designed to accommodate a rapidly expanding enrolment, which is expected to rise to 270 in the first year chemistry course by September, 1973.

While chemistry will be administered as a separate discipline, many facilities will be shared with other disciplines in common areas in the building. Since there will be considerable interchange of equipment and personnel between different areas, all floors are arranged so that a trolley can be pushed to any room in the building.

All sections of the building, especially those associated with research and common services, will be used extensively during the summer time for classes, research work, and scientific meetings. The entire building is equipped with a cooling system, and certain areas, such as the balance room and delicate instrument room, are equipped with special precise devices for control of temperature and humidity. Provision is made for a cold room unit where the temperature can be reduced to as much as 40 degrees below zero centigrade.

Auxiliary workshops are provided for making instruments, glass-blowing, and woodworking. Additional facilities will include an electronics shop, machine shop, paint shop, metal store, X-ray room and chromatography unit...

Peterborough,
Ontario.

Background image: C. Moore Ede

Chemistry Building Construction,
Otonabee River and Bata Library Construction in foreground, December 1967

Construction, c1968

Photo credit: Roy Nicholls Photographer

Exterior Detail, March 1969

Photo credit: Parks' Studio

 

 

November 1969

Photo credit: Parks' Studio