UT Arlington: Science & Engineering

UTA grew from a vocational college into a research university, and its science and engineering buildings trace that climb from a postwar lab hall to 21st-century research wings. This short loop of about a mile links the engineering quad, the older science core, and the newer health-sciences corner. Look for sustainability experiments along the way: a rooftop test garden, water-saving research buildings, and a park engineered to soak up storm runoff. Most interiors are working labs, so plan to view them from public lobbies and walkways.

UT Arlington grew from a vocational college into a major research university, and its science and engineering buildings tell that story in brick, glass and greenery. This loop of about a mile ties together the engineering quad, the older science core and the newer health-sciences corner, with a running theme of sustainability experiments you can spot along the way.

The Engineering Research Building, opened in 2011, earned LEED Gold with help from green and reflective roofs, systems that capture rain and air-conditioning condensate for irrigation, and plenty of recycled materials. The Life Science Building holds two surprises: the reassembled skeleton of a large reticulated python, and a sixth-floor roof where a 2008 test garden of mostly native grasses and wildflowers became one of North Texas's earliest green roofs.

The SEIR Building, opened in 2018, groups engineers, scientists, nurses and kinesiologists into shared research neighborhoods around a five-story Great Hall. And The Green at College Park, built on a former brownfield to hold and filter stormwater, was reported in 2012 as the first project certified under the Sustainable Sites Initiative.

It's a walk through a campus that treats its own grounds as a laboratory.