Renovation and Innovation in Kettering Labs
Windows of opportunity will wrap Kettering Laboratories when renovations are complete on a new innovation center, entryway and updated third floor. Walkways will allow direct access to the building from the Humanities Plaza, and landscaping will create a lawn seating area outside the new entry.
Work has begun on the first two phases of the transformation that Dean Joseph Saliba said will highlight integrative engineering and further the goal to educate complete professionals.
The plans call for a five-story external glass tower that will create a new entryway, three design studios and a fifth floor boardroom and lounge for engineering faculty and staff and UDRI researchers. It’s expected to be completed in October or November.
Also under way is the renovation of the third floor, which will provide new spaces for the departments of mechanical engineering, engineering management systems and electrical engineering. The third floor is expected to be finished in August.
Currently, the best way to access Kettering Labs is through the east door facing parking lot C. There is also a rear (south) entrance.
The mechanical engineering department's move from the first floor will allow for phase three -- planned to begin in summer 2006 -- and pave the way for the centerpiece of the project: the innovation center. Exterior brick walls will be replaced with glass, creating an unencumbered view of learning going on inside seven new multidisciplinary innovation spaces and the Design and Manufacturing Clinic. The innovation center will to be located at the northeast corner of the first floor.
“The innovation center is going to be the backbone of our future education,” Saliba said.
Saliba said the new spaces will emulate the creative, interdisciplinary spirit of Dayton’s early inventors, who believed, “There were no engineering disciplines, just engineering problems to be solved.”
A model of the completed renovations is available for viewing in Kettering Labs room 266.
May 24, 2005
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