As they have done for more than 50 years, students and faculty members swung open the doors of Higgins Laboratories in the fall of 1995 and set about the business of teaching, learning and exploring in mechanical engineering. But the building they entered last fall was quite different from the one the Institute dedicated in 1942. Having undergone a dramatic restoration and redesign, and having been expanded through the construction of a 17,000-square-foot addition, Higgins Laboratories was now a modern, attractive facility well-suited to the challenges of education and research in mechanical engineering today and in the decades to come. In the pages that follow, you'll learn more about the construction and rebirth of one of WPI's most important academic buildings, and about the new era in mechanical engineering it is helping to usher in.