MERCED, CALIF. — McCarthy Building Companies has completed construction on UC Merced Science and Engineering Building 2(S&E2).
The four-story, 101,900-square-foot facility will provide UC Merced with advanced educational and research capabilities. It is located in the academic core that is centered around the Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Quad.
S&E2 houses the mechanical engineering, material science, computer science, environmental and bio-engineering studies departments. It includes classrooms, research spaces and laboratories, faculty offices, administrative areas and a wind tunnel lab.
The building was designed to LEED-Platinum specifications. UC Merced prides itself in undertaking environmentally responsible construction projects. The university has also made the Triple Zero Commitment, which aims for net-zero energy use, zero landfill waste and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
UC Merced is the first university campus in the nation to have all its buildings LEED certified. For this particular project, construction crews repurposed 1,500 tons of material from area landfills. About 40 percent of the materials used to build the facility were either recycled or reclaimed.