Fun facts about DMU’s Student Education Center (SEC):
- The tunnel connecting the SEC with Ryan Hall is designed to support the weight of an 80,000-pound fire truck.
- The mall‘s oval paving and fog feature was inspired by an illustration of a single cell mitochondria. The paving pattern, the cell, floats in a mist of plasma. This can be best seen from the south windows of the DMU Library.
- Each shoe of the sculpture of the physician was formed by welding and grinding together more than 40 pieces of stainless steel. Conversely, his lab coat was formed from primarily a single sheet of steel.
- If you ordered all the concrete for the SEC to be delivered at once, the concrete trucks would be lined up bumper to bumper for nearly 4 1⁄2 miles, supplying just over 5,500 cubic yards of concrete.
- The foundation system for the library consists of a series of short rock piers. Each of the 255 piers is capable of supporting 68,000 pounds.
- The Latin phrase on the wall of the ground floor’s east lobby was translated for the building’s design team by the staff at Dowling Catholic High School. Its English translation can be found on the back side of the wall, “Preserving Health Through Knowledge.”
- 12 laps around the Wellness Center running track = 1 mile.
- Including the tunnels, the SEC encloses nearly 150,000 square feet of space.
- The terrazzo flooring stretching from the great hall to the east lobby actually has fragments of clear glass embedded into it to give it added sparkle and depth. The design team wanted to use real diamonds…maybe next time!
