One of the largest buildings on the MIT campus (252,000 square feet), the new Biology Department accommodates faculty, laboratories, and classrooms formerly dispersed in separate quarters. The building is distinguished by projecting glass curtain walls framed with silver aluminum panels. The latter, paired around each limestone-clad pier, rise from the second story to the roof level and serve as enclosures for the laboratories' exhaust ducts, providing the structure with both greater flexibility and safety.