Part of the University of
Edinburgh
The building is named after
Sir Edward Victor Appleton, the winner of the 1947
Nobel Prize for Physics. His Nobel medal is on display in the
concourse in a dusty, completely
ignored glass cabinet.
Most of the 1st year science-type lectures (maths,Physics,Computer Sciecne etc) take place in this building.
As mentioned before it is monstrously ugly. It lookes like a large shoebox. It has tiles on the side, but these just fall off leaving ugly scars up the sides.
Rumour has it that it was built in the 60's as a temporary building and was only supposed to last ten or fifteen years. However because it has some of the largest lecture theaters in the university it is too usefull to pull down (and probably too expensive to replace)
Not a lot of people know this but, at the top of the Appleton Tower (in the aforementioned Department of Neuroscience they carry out experiments on live animals. Some of these involve lesioning parts of rats' brains to see if they behave diferently.
Also I would be wary of the student who said that she liked going up to the top floor to look out over the city, Appleton Tower is a popular choice amongst depressed students who wish to kill themselves by jumping off a high building.