University of California, Irvine Breaks Ground on Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building

The University of California, Irvine broke ground in September of 2018 on the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building. Designed by LMN Architects to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration, the six-story, 204,750-sf facility will house the Samueli School of Engineering, the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Science, and the School of Physical Sciences. The L-shaped building will include a research zone with highly flexible laboratories, a tower housing offices and collaboration spaces for principal investigators, and a transparent connecting structure that will act as a community hub. The facility will utilize a sophisticated façade that can respond to environmental conditions to optimize daylighting, internal comfort, and energy efficiency. The project, which is targeting Platinum certification under the LEED for New Construction v2009 standard, also incorporates features that meet the WELL Building Standard and the UCI Smart Labs Initiative. The laboratory design consultant is Research Facilities Design (RFD) and the general contractor is Hathaway Dinwiddie. Saiful Bouquet is the structural engineer with Alvine Engineering as MEP engineer, FPL and Associates as civil engineer, and Stantec as acoustical consultant. Completion is expected in fall of 2020.