School Buildings

Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology

Groundbreaking: 2010
Architects: Weiss/Manfredi
Named for: Krishna P. Singh

In Progress: The result of a $20 million gift from Penn Engineering Alumnus Dr. Krishna P. Singh (GME’69, GR’72), this new facility will make Penn a leader in the field of nanotechnology. The $20 million gift, the largest single gift in the history of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, will create the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology, a planned 100,000 square-foot facility that will serve not only the Penn campus but the entire Philadelphia region.  It will function as a crossroads of multi-disciplinary fundamental and translational research, education and innovation. View the plans.

Skirkanich Hall

Built: 2006
Architects: Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects
Named for: Peter and Geri Skirkanich

Completed in 2006, Skirkanich Hall is the newest addition to the Penn Engineering campus. This building is not just an advanced laboratory space for the growing field of bioengineering, it is a work of art.  Skirkanich is an intricate composition of spaces that unites the surrounding buildings of the engineering school in bold contemporary style, connecting the Towne and Moore School buildings on the 33rd Street side of the Penn Engineering. The building features instructional laboratories to provide discovery-based learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and houses the administrative offices for the department of Bioengineering. View more details, including building location and driving directions.

Melvin J. and Claire Levine Hall

Built: 1996; 2003
Architects: Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham; Kieran Timberlake Associates, LLP.
Named for: Melvin J. and Claire Levine

Dedicated in 2003 as the Melvin J and Claire Levine Hall, this building connects together the Towne and Moore School buildings on the 34th Street side of the Penn Engineering campus. This building is home to the Weiss Tech House, computer labs, the Wu and Chen Auditorium, the GRASP Lab, and the Accenture Cyber Café. In addition to several faculty offices, the administrative offices for the department of Computer and Information Science are located in Levine. After its completion, Levine all won the 2003 Honor Award, the top honor for the Philadelphia section of the American Institute of Architects. View more details, including building location and driving directions.

Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter

Built: 1964
Architect: Martin, Stewart, Nobel and Class

The Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM), a cross-campus collaboration of faculty doing research in materials science, was born in 1960 from the original department of Metallurgy and Materials Science. Upon the building’s completion in 1964, the group’s associated faculty and labs moved to the building, which quickly became the center for materials science research at Penn. In addition to housing labs and offices for faculty from the School of Arts and Sciences (Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy) and the School of Medicine (Pysiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics), faculty from several departments at Penn Engineering conduct research here and the administrative offices for the department of Materials Science and Engineering are based in the LRSM. View more details, including building location and driving directions.

The Moore School

Built: 1912; 1926 (renovation); 1940 (addition); 1966 (addition)
Architects: Erskin and Morris (1912); Cret (1926); Alfred Bendiner (1940)
Named for: Alfred Fitler Moore

This building was originally constructed in 1912 for the Pepper Musical Instruments factory. In 1926 the building was renovated and The Moore School of Electrical Engineering, named in honor of the school’s benefactor, Alfred Fitler Moore, moved there. In 1940, a third story was added to the original structure. Moore is the site of the construction of the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC), the first digital electronic computer. In 1966, an addition to The Moore School, the Graduate Research Wing (GRW), was added. Today the GRW is partially shared by the Moore and Levine buildings. The Moore School building now houses laboratories, the SIG Center for Computer Graphics, and administrative offices for the department of Electrical and Systems Engineering. View more details, including building location and driving directions.

Towne Building

Built: 1906
Architect: Cope and Stewardson
Named for: John Henry Towne

The Towne Building, originally named The Towne School Building in 1906, was named for John Henry Towne, the university trustee and donor who established the Towne Scientific School, now known as the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Upon its construction, this building was the largest building in the university and set the standard for the architectural character of other university laboratory buildings of the time, like the Leidy Laboratories and the John Morgan Building. Towne now houses the dean’s office, the school’s machine shop, the engineering library, a wind tunnel, computer labs and administrative offices for the departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. View more details, including building location and driving directions.

Hayden Hall

Built: 1896; renovations -1969
Architects: Edgar V. Seeler (1896); Sabatino and Associates (1969)
Named For: Ferdinand Hayden

Constructed in 1896, Hayden Hall was originally built as the university’s original dental school. It was then renamed for Ferdinand Hayden, a geologist who was head of the US Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories following the Civil War.  His findings led to the designation of the Yellowstone region as the first National Park. Hayden Hall was used as a School of Fine Arts building until 1969 when it was renovated to house Engineering and other university faculty offices. Currently, the engineering faculty in Hayden Hall are primarily from the department of Bioengineering. View more details, including building location and driving directions.