Facility Will Become Part of the Campus Designed by Mies Van Der Rohe


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TO ARCHITECTURE, EDUCATION, AND NATIONAL EDITORS:

Illinois Institute of Technology Names Two Architects With Chicago

Ties for Planned Innovation Institute

CHICAGO, March 7, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Chicago Mayor Rahm

Emanuel joined Illinois Tech President John L. Anderson today to

announce that John Ronan Architects and Shepley Bulfinch will design

the planned Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech

Entrepreneurship on the University's Main Campus in Bronzeville.

John Ronan Architects, a Chicago-based, internationally recognized

architecture and urban design firm, is the design architect.

Boston-based Shepley Bulfinch is the programming architect on the

project. Construction on the $40 million, 100,000-square-foot facility

could begin as early as Summer 2015 with a completion date anticipated

in 2017. The new facility will be located on Illinois Tech's Main

Campus, which was designed by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe; the specific

site has not been determined.

Ed Kaplan, an IIT alumnus and long-time member of the University's

Board of Trustees, along with his wife, Carol, made a gift of $10

million to establish the Institute.

"The new Kaplan Institute at IIT further establishes Chicago as the

place where the greatest 21st century innovations begin," said Mayor

Rahm Emanuel. "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."

With a focus on innovative thinking and transitioning new ideas into

products and processes, the Kaplan Institute will house workshops,

media labs, classrooms, collaborative spaces, and offices for the

University's internationally-renowned Institute of Design, Idea Shop,

and Entrepreneurship and Leadership Academies.

"The establishment of the Kaplan Institute is a defining milestone in

IIT's history," Anderson says. "It will be transformational in terms

of how we teach our students-and all IIT undergraduates will spend

time here as part of their educational experience."

Kaplan, a Chicagoan who earned his bachelor's degree in Mechanical

Engineering from IIT in 1965, co-founded Zebra Technologies, a global

leader in bar code technology. "IIT will be transformed into a center

of technical innovation in Chicago, says Kaplan. "The Center will help

grow the tech-ecosystem here in Chicago and be a catalyst for

innovation." Kaplan's $10 million gift is a challenge grant and is in

addition to the $1 million he had previously given to support this

initiative.

John Ronan, founder of John Ronan Architects, will lead the design of

the new facility. Founded in 1999, John Ronan Architects rose to

national prominence in 2004 with the winning design for

the 500,000-square-foot Perth Amboy High School in New Jersey. The

firm has been the recipient of two AIA Institute National Honor

Awards-for the Gary Comer Youth Center and the Poetry Foundation, both

in Chicago-and was recently ranked #3 in the nation

by Architect Magazine. In 2010, Princeton Architectural Press

published a monograph entitled, Explorations: The Architecture of John

Ronan, andthe firm's work has been exhibited internationally,

including in Iterations: John Ronan's Poetry Foundation, an exhibition

at the Art Institute of Chicago that runs through March 2014.

"The aspirations for this project are nothing less than to transform

the way in which students are educated at IIT to meet the challenges

and opportunities of the future. I am honored to play a role in this

process and I look forward to the journey ahead," Ronan said.

Shepley Bulfinch, the award-winning programming architect for the

Institute, is a national leader in the programming and planning of

prototype collaboration spaces for some of the country's leading

academic institutions, including the Harvard Innovation Lab; Duke

University's Link Teaching and Learning Center; and collaborative

engineering and learning environments for Johns Hopkins University.

The firm has strong ties to Chicago that date back to 1892 when the

firm (then Shepley Rutan & Coolidge) designed the Art Institute of

Chicago as part of the World's Columbian Exposition.

"Shepley Bulfinch is honored to be partnering with IIT and John Ronan

to create this ground-breaking institute for innovation," said Carole

Wedge, Shepley Bulfinch President. "As a catalyst for the exploration

of the nature of design and innovation, its impact will be felt from

the IIT campus and the city of Chicago around the world."

About Illinois Institute of Technology Founded in 1890, Illinois

Institute of Technology is a Ph.D.-granting university, located in

Bronzeville on Chicago's South Side, with more than 7,800 students in

engineering, science, architecture, design, applied technology, human

sciences, business and law. Total enrollment in Fall 2013 was the

highest since 1968-and the Fall 2013 full-time undergraduate

enrollment was the largest it has been since 1981. Visit www.iit.edu.

SOURCE Illinois Institute of Technology

-0- 03/07/2014

/CONTACT: Jeannie Hartig, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, 312-576-3921, jhartig@iit.edu

/Web Site: http://www.iit.edu/

CO: Illinois Institute of Technology

ST: Illinois

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