The groundbreaking ceremony for the new math building took place on Oct. 28 in the DC Quad, marking the beginning of construction for the long-awaited M4 building. 

The new 120,000-square-foot, five-story building will be connected directly to the three other math buildings on campus and act as a centre for collaboration and learning for the math faculty. The space will include a new math undergrad office, two new registrar-funded student classrooms equipped for modern teaching, and more spaces specifically designed to encourage interaction between students and faculty.  

Planning for this building has taken nearly a decade and was slowed down significantly by setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. M4 will be constructed by Gillam Group Inc., a Toronto-based construction company and is estimated to take two to three years to complete. 

The ground was officially broken at the ceremony by Vivek Goel, President and vice-chancellor of the UW, Mark Giesbrecht, dean of the faculty of mathematics, Mina Tahmasbi Arashloo, assistant professor at the school of computer science and Catherine Dong, mathematics undergraduate student and Waterloo senate member, all of whom gave remarks later in the ceremony on their hopes for the new M4 building.  

“M4 is another step forward in empowering the university and the faculty of math to further leverage our technological expertise, our innovation ecosystem and our unique approach to education in defining new features for the university and for humanity,” Goel said.  

Another feature that will set this new building apart is its goal to reduce its carbon footprint and be energy efficient. M4 will achieve this through their new green computing room that will run on low-power computing and use the energy generated from the computers to heat the building.  

The new M4 building has been designed to bring together current faculty and students from different disciplines such as computer science, statistics and mathematics to improve communication and cohesiveness within the faculty, but also for future members of Waterloo to benefit from as well.  

“M4 is an exciting building for the future of both the mathematics faculty and students, but it is also something for multiple generations and it will really shape how Waterloo goes forward,” Giesbrecht said. “It’ll serve to attract new students. It’ll serve as a place where they can collaborate and attract faculty to maintain this great place that we love so dearly.”