Sustainable Engineering Laboratories Now Open

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The new Sustainable Engineering Laboratories (SEL) building is now open to the UMass Amherst community, bringing together research, teaching, and collaboration focused on addressing some of the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges.

The approximately 75,000-square-foot facility includes specialized laboratory and research spaces, classrooms, offices, conference and meeting rooms, and collaborative lab lofts. It is now home to the Energy Transition Institute, Wind Energy Center, and UMass Transportation Center, along with the Sustainable Transportation Innovation Lab, Battery Tech Lab, and Hydrodynamic Energy Systems Lab. Together, these spaces will support research and education spanning renewable and hydrodynamic energy, transportation, battery technology, energy systems, and sustainable materials, while creating new opportunities for collaboration across disciplines. 

The building sits at the southern edge of the engineering campus, facing the Campus Center, and representing a new front door to the Riccio College of Engineering for the rest of campus.

Among the building's signature facilities is an indoor wave-current flume, a research wave tank that allows engineers to test wave energy converters, tidal turbines, and other marine energy technologies under controlled, repeatable conditions rather than at sea. Additional shared research infrastructure will come online in phases.

The building itself reflects the sustainability work taking place inside. A shared geothermal heat pump system supplies the building's heating and cooling, paired with a high-performance envelope. The building's design won the grand prize in the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and Built Environment Plus Embodied Carbon Reduction Challenge, which recognizes projects that cut the emissions generated by building materials and construction.