Chicago-based firm John Ronan Architects and Boston-based Shepley Bulfinch will design the new Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and IlT president John L. Anderson announced the partnership of the two firms—with John Ronan Architects serving as the design architect on the project and Shepley Bulfinch as the programming architect.
The new $40 million, 100,000-square-foot building will be located on the South Side of Chicago at the university’s main campus, which was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The Kaplan Institute will contain media labs, classrooms, collaborative spaces, and offices for the university’s Institute of Design, Idea Shop, and Entrepreneurship, as well as its Leadership Academies.
“The new Kaplan Institute at IIT further establishes Chicago as the place where the greatest 21st century innovations begin,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel in an IIT news report. “This center will help today’s students become the innovators of tomorrow—and provide businesses with a pipeline of new products, processes and talented graduates to hire.”
John Ronan Architects, named one of ARCHITECT’s top 50 firms in 2013, designed the IIT’s Smart Grid Technical Center. The firm has also designed a number of academic and cultural buildings in Chicago, including the Poetry Foundation, Christ the King Jesuit College Prep School, and Gary Comer College Prep school. The firm’s founder and leading principal, John Ronan, FAIA, is a professor and associate dean at IIT.
Shepley Bulfinch, recognized by the AIA in 2011 for promoting diversity in architecture, also has a history in Chicago. In 1892, the firm—then known as Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge—designed the Art Institute of Chicago. The firm has worked with many universities and colleges, including multiple projects at Arizona State, Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins.
Construction on the IIT facility could begin as early as summer 2015 with an anticipated completion date of 2017.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Vincent Kan, via a Creative Commons license.
