Renderings: New computer science building headed to UIC

The University of Illinois Chicago is gearing up to begin work on a new 135,000-square-foot computer science building. Known as the Computer Design, Research, and Learning Center or CDRLC, the $117.8 million project will replace a parking lot at 900 W. Taylor Street.

The upcoming facility will double the capacity of the school's computer science program and consolidate the department within a single building. The structure calls for 15 classrooms, 35 labs, an auditorium, offices for student affairs, and an undergraduate learning and community center—all connected by a five-story atrium grafted onto the existing Engineering Research Facility at neighboring 842 W. Taylor Street.

The new building comes from Seattle's LMN Architects and Chicago-based architect of record Booth Hansen. The design features a "muscular precast concrete and terra cotta facade," which draws inspiration from the school's late modernist eastern campus designed in 1965 by Walter Netsch, according to LMN's website. The project aims to achieve LEED Gold certification and will utilize geothermal technology for both heating and cooling.

Construction on the Computer Design, Research, and Learning Center is supported by Gov. Pritzker's Rebuild Illinois capital investment plan. "As Chicago's only public research university—and one of the most diverse universities in the country—we're making investments to further cement UIC's place as a national leader, propelling it into the future," said Pritzker at a groundbreaking event earlier this month.

That groundbreaking ceremony, however, was just that—ceremonial. No permits have been issued for the project, and the parking lot where the new building will rise is currently fully intact. According to UIC, the Computer Design Research and Learning Center is expected to open to students in summer 2023.

The CDRLC is the third recent addition to UIC's east campus. It follows the Engineering Innovation Building and the Academic and Residential Complex, which both opened in 2019. The university also intends to break ground (at some point) on its $95 million Center of the Arts designed by New York architecture firm OMA and Chicago's KOO LLC.