Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing

The Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) is a research collaboration between the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, and manufacturing companies worldwide. The 63,000-sf state-of-the-art facility is designed for manufacturers to collaborate with faculty and students from Virginia’s top research and teaching institutions to perform advanced research in surface engineering and manufacturing systems. CCAM houses engineering and computational labs, as well as a large high-bay space for prototypical manufacturing processes, including thermal spraying, directed vapor deposition, and multi-axis milling. The facilities also include core laboratories for materials preparation, surface characterization, and computer visualization, as well as conferencing and amenity spaces for CCAM employees and visitors.

The building is composed of a series of simple rectangular forms. One “box” contains the meeting rooms and café, with views to the adjacent wetland forest. The high-bay box provides a simulated factory environment for large equipment, where a continuous clerestory window provides generous daylight into the work space. Adjoining the high bay is the third major box form, containing the open office areas and featuring a floor-to-ceiling curtainwall that takes advantage of north-facing views to bring soft daylight deep into the space. The lobby area, which doubles as display space for the technologies that are being pioneered at CCAM, is naturally lit by a conical skylight, visible from the exterior as the building’s “signature” element.

The internal planning and utility distribution provides flexibility for ever-changing research projects and associated equipment clusters. Recognizing that, at certain times, CCAM needs to accommodate proprietary research projects that may not be appropriate in the shared high bay area, there are smaller laboratories that have the capability to be visually secured. Under normal operations, however, it is possible to look from the high bay, through the labs, into the offices, and to the natural landscape beyond.

CCAM is the only collaboration of its kind in North America. By pooling resources of universities and member companies, it offers a new model for accelerating the transitions of research breakthroughs into product development and manufacturing techniques. Founding companies include Canon Virginia Inc., Chromalloy, Newport News Shipbuilding, Rolls-Royce North America, Sandvik Coromant, and Siemens.