Location:  Irvine, California

Client: University of California, Irvine

The California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology, or Cal (IT)2, is a new high tech research and development facility. The project is one of the California Institutes of Scientific Innovation sponsored by the State of California Governor’s Office. The new facility provides resources for a wide range of multidisciplinary projects and support programs such as the School of Engineering,

Office of Academic Computing, Environmental Science, Media Arts, and School of Education. Cal (IT)2 supports these programs’ research into information technology and innovative uses of digital media.

Comprising 120,000 square feet and four stories, the building includes a combination of clean rooms for silicon chip based manufacturing processes, wet and dry laboratories, classrooms, offices and meeting facilities. Also included are rooms for experimental media and a gallery for the display and demonstration of experiments in new media and technology. The building is a composition of two major wings, one comprising research space, the other including a 100-seat multi-media lecture theater, media center, and Institute offices. Johnson Fain also developed the Detailed Program Plan (DPP) for the facility, which called for a combination of modular laboratory and office spaces that may be subdivided, or smaller rooms that might be combined into larger spaces. Similarly, as existing technologies become obsolete, new ones will replace them, and the building needs to be able to accommodate those changes.

Johnson Fain was the design architect and the project delivery was design-build.