Furman University
Science Building Addition and Renovation
Greenville, South Carolina 
Education > Science Lab
General Contracting, Preconstruction
The Furman University project included the complete renovation of an existing science building, Plyler Hall, and the addition of two new buildings linked to Plyler Hall: the South Addition and the North Addition. Renovations affected 120,000 square feet of space and new construction totaled 80,000 square feet.
Included within the project’s scope is a central reading room with walls built on a radius, a science library, classrooms, office space and research laboratories for physics, biology and chemistry, and a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) lab. There is also a lecture hall and auditorium, a planetarium with a 24-foot diameter dome, and a detached greenhouse.
The buildings are structural steel with composite metal and concrete slab. Exterior finishes include brick veneer, glass curtainwall and aluminum-plate panels. These buildings use thermal solar panels, day lighting, and an energy-efficient cooling system using chilled beams, a technology widely used in Europe. At the time of construction, there were only two such cooling systems in use in the United States.
The new complex, Charles H. Townes Center for Science, is named after Furman graduate and Greenville, SC, native Charles Hard Townes, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1964 for his role in development of the laser. Townes is internationally acclaimed for his many notable achievements and honors in the fields of science and religion.
Furman University’s Townes Center for Science is LEED® Gold certified.
Greenville Regional Office, LEED
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