Riverside Campus Plan - Office of Facilities Coordination - Texas ...

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY RIVERSIDE CAMPUS PLAN26FIGURE 1Chapel, a well-established meeting and trainingwood Airport, just minutes away from Riverside.expanded to allow for routine use by undergradu-TTI Headquarters Main ConferenceRoom on DiscoveryDrive: an example of desirablequality conference rooms atRiversideFIGURE 2TTI Headquarters MainLobby on Discovery Drive: anexample of diserable qualityspace at Riverside.FIGURE 3Students building the SolarDecatholon Project on the“Architecture Ranch” at RiversideCampus.space at Riverside, recently expanded to providenew restroom facilities.The group park cars and enter the Center, to receivea greeting from the receptionist. The graduateresearch assistants traveled to Riverside bythe regular shuttle bus service, and are already inthe lobby area, taking another look at the panelsand photographs that tell the history of the WWIIcampus.The team from the Riverside Energy EfficiencyLaboratory (REEL) took the electrically-poweredcampus shuttle from the former 1950s aircraft engineshop that now serves as a center for advancedresearch on alternative energy systems, and jointhe others in one of the well-equipped conferencerooms to await the delegation flying into Easter-The government officials and congressional staffmembers are met at the airport and ferried to theRiverside Campus, pausing at the security entranceto collect visitor passes and campus information.By 11:00 am the group has exchanged greetings,enjoyed coffee and snacks delivered from theCenter’s cafeteria, had a welcome from the CampusAdministrator whose offices are in the Center,and gets to work. The IT linkage allows the meetingto be shared with researchers off campus, andthe Business Center facilitates transfer of documentsand images as needed.After a working lunch a chartered campus shuttletakes the group to the Digital Fabrication Facilitybuilt by the College of Architecture in 2006, nowate and graduate classes while meeting the exactingneeds for fabricating components for emergingenergy systems being developed by REEL.The shuttle heads down 5th Street to Avenue A,now the emergency exit road off campus thatlinks to Highway 21, and stops at the steel andglass research center transformed from the 1950sworkshop. Riverside provides unique opportunitiesto create at full scale, and the visitors examinethe prototypes with interest. The IT team that hastraveled with the delegation provides video supportso that off-campus participants can engage inan interactive discussion.The groups part at the Riverside Center at the endof a productive day; one that promises to lead toadditional research funding and new internationalrecognition.123