Harvard University Laboratory for the Integrated Science & Engineering

The LISE building - the last building to be built at Harvard's main campus - is an interdisciplinary building that brings Harvard's scientific community together and a gateway to the heart of the campus from the north. It adds 140,000 sqft to the Departments of Physics, Chemistry and Biology in the university's efforts to renew its commitment to science for the 21st century. Attached to the Physics building (Mckay) the most sensitive laboratories - 2/3 of the program - are placed underground below the birch-tree courtyard that serves as a gathering place around the cafeteria at the ground level. At the urban design level, LISE connects 5 existing science buildings and in raising the building on an arcade standing in three concrete legs three floors above the ground level, LISE appears to be a contemporary fragment in the ever evolving campus.