Harvard officials envision LISE as a center for collaborative research within the different science departments. The design includes an underground “clean room” with specially filtered air.
The above-ground part of the building will be located next to McKay, raised above the courtyard to allow pedestrians to travel on the paths behind the Science Center.
“If we succeed, this courtyard will be better,” said Rafael Moneo, the architect for the project.
Professor of Physics Charles M. Marcus told the ANC members the building was part of an ongoing trend to break down the divisions between different science disciplines.
“The project we are undertaking is a response to the change in the way science is done in general,” he said.
State Representative Alice K. Wolf said afterwards that the emphasis on the building’s scientific benefits represented a change from previous Harvard presentations of building projects, which she said have often focused on physical aspects of construction.
“I think it’s interesting that Harvard is trying to push the basic good of the activity,” she said. “In this neighborhood this has some currency.”
LISE is the second of four major new buildings the FAS science departments are planning to construct in the North Yard, totalling about 500,000 square feet altogether.
In April, the ANC voted to support the first new building, the Biological Research Infrastructure—an underground facility containing 16,000 cages for laboratory mice which many Agassiz residents initially opposed.
In addition to the 500,000 square feet of already-planned buildings, science planners estimate that a second phase of construction will entail roughly another 500,000 square feet.
Meanwhile, HLS has begun a feasibility study to look at possible locations for new buildings.
Power said that the combined total of planned growth by FAS, the Law School and the Harvard Divinity School is about 1.5 million total square feet of construction—in all, about 1.1 million additional square feet in new building, after some existing buildings are torn down.
The University will make a presentation on the LISE to Cambridge’s Planning Board next month.
In the fall, Harvard representatives will again bring the project before the ANC before beginning the process of acquiring the necessary city permits. Power said the University would like to begin construction in early 2004.
—Staff writer Jessica R. Rubin-Wills can be reached at rubinwil@fas.harvard.edu.