[2] Science Hill is a portion of a sandstone drumlin that was sheltered from glacial erosion by a traprock ridge, Mill Rock, to its north.

[16] The new facilities allowed Yale to demolish its older science buildings on its central campus, including the original Peabody Museum and Sloane Physical Laboratory, making room for the residential college system.

[17] Meanwhile, the Sachem's Wood mansion, preserved for the Hillhouse family in the purchase agreement, was increasingly surrounded by large laboratory facilities.

[7] After World War II, residential overcrowding and an influx of married students prompted Yale to build temporary quonset huts on undeveloped areas of Pierson-Sage Square.

[18] University president A. Whitney Griswold relied on modernist architects for these facilities, breaking with pre-war gothic fervor.

Saarinen's vision contributed modestly to the configuration, while Johnson's buildings gave Science Hill a central courtyard.

The museum is Yale's main repository of scientific collections, including fossils, minerals, archeological artifacts, and animal specimens.

[30][31] Several buildings are recognized as important architectural monuments, most notably Eero Saarinen's Ingalls Rink and Philip Johnson's Kline Biology Tower.

[19]: 54  Architectural historian Elizabeth Mills Brown appraised its 1960s incarnation as Yale's "most poorly integrated, inefficient, and incoherent complex," observing that undeveloped land had offered too much freedom to plan comprehensively.

[15]: 144  More recently, a campus plan commissioned by the university articulated similar concerns, calling the area "an ill-defined and unattractive pedestrian environment" lacking a "sense of place and focus.

To commemorate his work to found the Sheffield Scientific School, a statue of Benjamin Silliman cast by John Ferguson Weir resides outside the Sterling Chemistry Laboratory.

[36] A Roy Lichtenstein sculpture entitled "Modern Head" was placed at the base of Science Hill, near Hillhouse Avenue, in 1993.

[37] A reflection on James Hillhouse's property is given in Lydia Sigourney's poem Moonlight at Sachem's Wood, which is accompanied by some notes upon his family.