The building will house a large interior public space rimmed with private offices, auditoriums, classrooms, lecture halls, galleries, courtyards, laboratories and conference rooms. It has been designed to foster interchange among researchers and students in computational and applied mathematics, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and other related fields. Above all, the building will support the interdisciplinary collaboration that is the backbone of this undertaking. Computational engineering refers to any application of computing to engineering tasks. Theory and experimentation are the first two elements of the foundation of modern engineering and science.
Computation is now the third element of that foundation.
The new Computational Engineering Building has been designed with this in mind. It incorporates ample space for meetings, including an auditorium and several excellent conference rooms. Most of these facilities are clustered around the main hall, which I hope becomes a center for interaction with the technical community. Rice University is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian private university dedicated to undergraduate teaching and graduate studies, research and professional training in selected disciplines. It has an undergraduate student population of 2,572, a graduate and professional student population of 1,375 and a full-time faculty of 448.