Nanjing University is one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher learning in China. Nanjing’s new College of Engineering and Applied Science building, which will be located at the new Xianlin Campus in Nanjing, endeavors to complement this status by becoming a world-renowned, international engineering facility. With a goal of furthering the university's reputation as the “best in science,” HDR was hired to provide conceptual design services for the new facility. The building will house spaces for material science and engineering, quantum electronics and optical engineering, biomedical and bioengineering, and new energy science and engineering.