New building used as tool to teach students

By Rosa Duarte

Published: May 1, 2008

Virginia Tech celebrates the opening of a new departmental hall.
The Department of Building Construction and the Myers-Lawson School of Construction have a new home in the Bishop-Favrao Hall.
The four story building has many open spaces, see-through glass offices and state of the art equipment.
The building also has open ceilings and exposed knobs that are labeled.
Department Head Walid Thabet says they “chose not to put full ceilings in most of the floors to allow the students to expose the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work.”
According to PhD student Pardis Pishdad she and fellow students “love to see all the mechanical and plumbing and the structure exposed this actually helps the students to learn.”
By the fall semester, the first floor of the building is designated for experiential labs and will soon be full of 3D equipment where students can do virtual constructions and mix their own concrete.