Virginia Tech Innovation Campus' first building nears completion

The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus’ first building focuses on sustainability, emphasizes health and wellness, and creates spaces that foster a sense of community — all designed with cutting-edge technologies befitting of a university making moves in the fields of computer science and computer engineering.

The Innovation Campus Academic Building One is just across the Potomac River from the National Mall and some of the most recognizable landmarks in the world.

Virginia Tech sought a contemporary and iconic design for its first Innovation Campus building. Administrators are enthusiastic that the project delivers both.

“Without a doubt, it’s just a gorgeous building from the outside with remarkable shapes,” said Lance Collins, vice president and executive director of the Innovation Campus. “Those faceted shapes to me are very distinctive. It will be iconic in the region, and it also features an interior that is very open and encouraging of collaboration. I think we all recognize that.”

Construction is in the final stages for the 300,000-square-foot, 11-story building set to open to students in January 2025. Academic Building One is the first of three buildings planned on a 3.5-acre site just south of Reagan National Airport in Alexandria. 

Virginia Tech’s Division of Facilities engaged Sasaki for campus master planning; SmithGroup, the architectural firm responsible for the building’s design; and contractor Whiting-Turner. The completed project will be a stunning, masterful result of the team’s collaboration and creativity.

“I think we all felt the project was ideally suited for us because Virginia Tech set the ambitious goals for a building that would have a very high level of sustainability, and they wanted the computer science and computer engineering programs to be housed in a top-tier research environment,” said Sven Shockey ’96, vice president and design director at SmithGroup. “The building and site need to work as a complete mini campus. It must be self-sufficient for a while until the other buildings develop around it.”

Liza Morris, university architect, said Virginia Tech sought to bring certain signature elements from its Blacksburg campus to the urban setting of Alexandria and tailor those for the context — a place-making exercise that focuses on technology. 

One example is the large open green space adjacent to Academic Building One. In time, three structures will open to this central space. This dedicated open space and campus organizing element is modeled after the Drillfield on the Blacksburg campus but scaled for the Alexandria location. The open space also conceals the site’s 50,000-gallon rainwater cistern.

“On our main campus, we have this rolling, green, lush landscape, a bucolic setting that serves as the perfect counterpoint to beautiful collegiate Gothic architecture,” Morris said. The Innovation Campus "was an opportunity to create and bring a fuller vision of what a land-grant institution such as Virginia Tech can deliver for the state. We serve both the rural aspects of the state and the urban economy, and we want to have our campuses reflect this range.”

Morris was instrumental in helping to develop 10 guiding principles for the project, conveying the university’s commitment to health and wellness, green and social spaces, flexibility, transparency, integrated technology, and sustainability. SmithGroup in turn has designed a building that employs innovation to the highest degree to convey these attributes.

To start, next generation computational processes and artificial intelligence informed building modeling techniques, and the team incorporated many notable features, especially an integrated photovoltaic system that uses three technologies to generate electricity for the building. Most solar installations sit on the rooftop, but this system generates power from the facade, harvesting the sun’s solar energy principally from the building’s south and southeast facing sides.

Complementing the photovoltaic system are vertical terracotta fins that provide passive shading. The fin geometry was fine-tuned for each facet so that the fins shade the building from excessive heat gain as the sun moves around the structure. The fins play both a technical and a design role, they stop the building from getting too warm and prevent interior glare while also adding visual warmth to the exterior.

“I thought it was important to be able to tie the building’s design in a meaningful way back to the core of our Blacksburg campus and traditions,” Morris said. “We have our Hokie Stone masonry in Blacksburg, and the new building utilizes terracotta masonry. In this way we’re still maintaining a textural masonry element. It felt like the right materiality and the right way to honor the legacy of collegiate Gothic stone architecture of our Blacksburg campus, but in a way that’s appropriate for the new context.”

In addition, the team designed a compelling roof terrace with a photovoltaic trellis that conceals rooftop mechanical systems. Given the building’s proximity to the airport, special attention was paid to the structural form and choice of materials to minimize reflections interfering with the control tower and flight paths.

“This is a highly site-specific architecture,” Shockey said. “The form and articulation are ideally adapted for this specific location. 

“Another idea was weaving together technology with biophilic/humanist considerations. We have all this technology, but it’s in the service of the building occupants. They can enjoy the views and the warmth of the building. We have photovoltaics accompanied by terracotta fins which give the building a very warm glow. It doesn’t feel like it has been overwhelmed by technology.”

Natural light is diffused throughout the interiors of Academic Building One while preserving the views of the surrounding area. Most of the offices are in the center of each floor, maintaining common areas next to the windows for all building occupants to enjoy the access to daylight and the incredible vista of the Potomac River, the airport, and the National Mall beyond.

“We wanted the layout to foster an environment where accidental ‘collisions’ occur,” Collins said. “It’s easy to get hold of space for a group of people to brainstorm on an idea that may have popped up, and to me, that was important because, if we’re going to invent new technology, that’s where it happens. It’s the collisions that really are the creative spark, so we wanted this new space to maximize those opportunities.”

The building also features several specialty labs, including a two-story drone cage for the testing of drones, and a dedicated area on the ground floor for students to present their capstone projects.

The ground floor itself features a two-story lobby that looks out onto the urban plaza and green space, with benches, trees, and plantings. A large classroom with partitions can be converted into an auditorium and used for events such as a science fair or conference. A welcome center sits along the south side of the lobby. The second and upper floors include a series of amenities and wellness spaces designed for students and faculty to take breaks, relieve stress, and recharge. 

In short, all parties point to the design as a forward-thinking building that is bold and dramatic.

Virginia Tech has made a significant investment in the Innovation Campus. The university began development in 2018, broke ground on the Innovation Campus in September 2021, and has been increasing enrollment in its Master of Engineering program in the region in preparation for the 2025 opening. Currently, more than 350 graduate students in computer science and computer engineering are taking classes in the university’s location in Falls Church. Officials plan to increase enrollment to 750 master’s degree and 200 doctoral degree students and graduate 550 master’s degree and 50 doctoral degree students annually. 

The university’s commitment to increasing the workforce in the technological fields of computer science and computer engineering were driving factors in Amazon’s decision to move its second headquarters to the region, and why tech behemoths Boeing and Raytheon plan to make similar moves.

“I think ours is a fantastic building in an important region,” Collins said. “I think we’re in the early stage of the growth of the tech ecosystem in the greater D.C. area. We’re in an incredibly important location and the proximity to industry and the federal government is exceptionally important. There’s just an outsized opportunity. It’s unique, almost historic, in some sense.”