The Complete Guide to Smith Hall at Uw: Hours, Departments, and Navigation

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Finding your lecture hall in Smith requires an understanding of how it merges with its twin, Gowen Hall. The two structures physically connect along their southern and eastern facades. This architectural coupling creates seamless transitions that often disorient uninitiated visitors, who cross an invisible boundary and suddenly find room numbers switching from Smith (e.g., Room 105) to Gowen (e.g., Room 112) without exiting through an exterior doorway.

The interior levels behave as follows:

• Basement Level: Houses major technological routing, computer stations, and large-capacity utility spaces. The basement passageway allows pedestrians to move between Smith and Gowen without facing winter rainstorms, though ceiling heights drop and piping is visibly exposed.
• First Floor: Direct grade-level entrances open off the Quad. This floor contains high-traffic lecture halls, including Smith 120, a lecture auditorium equipped with fixed tiered seating. A wide hallway bridges straight into the central lobby of Gowen Hall.
• Second & Third Floors: These levels transition primarily into departmental administration, faculty suites, and compact discussion rooms (such as Smith 211 and Smith 305). Restrooms on these levels are spaced unevenly due to the original 1930s plumbing stacks; check stairwell vestibules if you fail to spot them in the central corridor.
• Fourth Floor: Characterized by pitched ceilings and reduced hallway widths, the fourth floor contains emeritus faculty quarters, specialized study collections, and quiet reading areas. Foot traffic drops substantially up here.

Signage throughout the stairwells indicates elevation, but beware: the gentle slope of the campus ridge means that a first-floor entry on the Quad side places you higher off the ground than an entrance approached from the rear service drive.