The Physical Sciences and Engineering Center is a major expansion to a historically and architecturally significant campus dating to 1961. The project posed a number of challenges, from accommodating a demanding program within constraints of site and budget to working within the fabric of the historic campus plan while creating a new state-of-the-art learning environment for science and engineering. The proposed solution incorporates elements of the old campus with new technology, new materials, and a new twist on the historical architectural expression, balancing requirements from both advocates of the traditional and proponents of the modern. The Science Courtyard serves as an organizational element for three separate pavilions: a single-story Commons building to the east, flanked by a one-story Classroom building to the north and a two-story Laboratory building to the south, with one story set against the hillside reading as a single-story mass at the courtyard level.

The Center is a new nexus of activity for the campus, building the community of science students and enthusiasts on campus and beyond. In addition to being a place for formal and informal gathering for students, the Science Courtyard houses successful outreach events such as the Physics Olympics, a STEM summer camp for high school students and soon to come a STEM Summer Speaker Series open to the community at large.