Town Center

Dining at Discovery The Town Center includes two public dining venues: Aldo’s Café and Steenbock’s on Orchard. In addition to providing food and drink for building occupants, program participants and visitors, the venues offer opportunities for informal science education programming.

In the center of the forum’s cherry wood floor is an inlaid pattern of Penrose tiling. The different shapes fit together like puzzle pieces but no two sides are the same and the order of the shapes never repeats itself. Mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose investigated these nonperiodic tilings in the 1970s. Former UW–Madison chancellor John Wiley suggested adding this pattern to the floor.

Dining at Discovery The Town Center includes two public dining venues: Aldo’s Café and Steenbock’s on Orchard. In addition to providing food and drink for building occupants, program participants and visitors, the venues offer opportunities for informal science education programming.

Two media walls with ultrahigh definition screens respond to movement. Visitors can learn about science and the building and create interesting visual effects by interacting with the walls.
 

Two media walls with ultrahigh definition screens respond to movement. Visitors can learn about science and the building and create interesting visual effects by interacting with the walls.
 

This changing display features information about famous UW–Madison scientists and researchers and reminds us that we are "In a Constant State of Discovery."
 

Three slate water walls with LED lights respond to visitors' movements with light patterns and chimes in the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical ratio found throughout nature, such as in the patterns and spirals of leaves, flowers, pine cones, shells, fish scales, human proportions and single cells. The first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each number that follows is the sum of the previous two. For example: 0+1=1; 1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+3=5; 3+5=8; and so on.

This niche features plants dating to the dinosaur age, geologic artifacts and more. The primeval setting—complete with several fossils—features mosses, horsetails, cycads, ferns, tree ferns, palms, ginkgoes, blooming magnolias and conifers. 

This niche features plants dating to the dinosaur age, geologic artifacts and more. The primeval setting—complete with several fossils—features mosses, horsetails, cycads, ferns, tree ferns, palms, ginkgoes, blooming magnolias and conifers. 

This interactive niche features rotating exhibits highlighting research at UW–Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research.   

Fossils of creatures that once lived in the ocean can be found in the stone tiles in the floor of the Town Center.
 

Three slate water walls with LED lights respond to visitors' movements with light patterns and chimes in the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical ratio found throughout nature, such as in the patterns and spirals of leaves, flowers, pine cones, shells, fish scales, human proportions and single cells. The first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each number that follows is the sum of the previous two. For example: 0+1=1; 1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+3=5; 3+5=8; and so on.
 

Three slate water walls with LED lights respond to visitors' movements with light patterns and chimes in the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical ratio found throughout nature, such as in the patterns and spirals of leaves, flowers, pine cones, shells, fish scales, human proportions and single cells. The first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each number that follows is the sum of the previous two. For example: 0+1=1; 1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+3=5; 3+5=8; and so on.