Canadian government commits $32.6M for new Waterloo engineering building

The federal government recently announced it will contribute $32.6 million for the construction of a state-of-the-art engineering building at the University of Waterloo, as part of a program to enhance and modernize research facilities on Canadian campuses.

Engineering 7, the seven-storey, 240,000-square-foot building on Waterloo’s east campus, will accommodate expanding demand from student enrolment and feature advanced research labs. Currently under construction, the facility will cost $88 million total with a scheduled opening in the spring of 2018, the university estimates.

Home to growing biomedical and mechatronics engineering programs, as well as research on disruptive technologies including machine intelligence, mobile robotics, autonomous vehicles and wearable biomedical devices, Engineering 7 will be one of the largest buildings on campus when complete.

In addition to study and social areas, lecture halls and 20 garages for student design teams, the new building will also house a cutting-edge additive manufacturing lab and the RoboHub, a unique testing facility for aerial, mobile and magnetically levitated robots.

“Since its founding 60 years ago, the University of Waterloo has been doing things differently,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of Waterloo. “The Engineering 7 building is a prime example of Waterloo’s unconventional, creative, innovative thinking. It will be home to world-leading talent and research, continuing to expand the impact of disruptive technologies that will help to put Canada at the forefront of the global economy.”

“Engineering 7 is more than a building. It epitomizes the future of engineering education and the preparation of students to experience early, innovate early and incubate their ideas early, right from first year,” said Pearl Sullivan, dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Waterloo. “It will also be a meeting place for our 1,000 Canadian industry partners, as well as entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, scholars and academics from around the world.”
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