Va. Tech selects architecture firm for first Innovation Campus building

Virginia Tech has selected Detroit-based architecture and planning firm SmithGroup to design the first academic building for its Innovation Campus in Alexandria, the university announced Friday.

SmithGroup responded to a public request for proposals (RFP) issued last summer by Tech after its June announcement that it would build its Innovation Campus in Alexandria. The RFP called for full design services for the first 300,000-square foot academic building. 

The firm also designed both Holden Hall and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) II building on Tech’s Blacksburg campus. One of the lead designers for the building, Sven Shockey, vice president and corporate design director, is also a Virginia Tech alumnus.

The architecture and planning firm has also designed several other university buildings including the University of Pennsylvania’s Stephen A. Levin Neural & Behavioral Sciences Building and the University of Texas at Dallas’ Engineering and Computer Science West building. 

“We reviewed proposals from the ‘best of the best’ and SmithGroup stood out not just for their striking designs but also because of their understanding of what we strive to achieve and the culture we are trying to foster,” Brandy Salmon, managing director of the Innovation Campus, said in a statement.

The first Innovation Campus master’s degree students will enroll this fall. When the project is fully completed with the next 10 years, it will enroll 750 students, including master’s candidates, doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.

“This first academic building will set the standard for our campus in Alexandria,” Liza Morris, assistant vice president for planning and university architect for Virginia Tech, said in a statement. “We are excited to work with a firm that embraces new technologies in the ways they have demonstrated, and designs spaces that foster collaboration and engagement through processes that are themselves collaborative and engaging, all in direct alignment with our vision.”