Annenberg Groundbreaking

Caltech will soon have a new home for its interdisciplinary program in information science. The first institution in the nation with such a program, Caltech broke ground for the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology on December 7.

The field of information science is as broad as it sounds, encompassing many areas of science and engineering from the theoretical foundations of information to how nature handles it in biological systems to how it shapes social systems.

“When you’re crossing so many different disciplines, when you’re reinventing the very boundaries of science and the way it can improve our lives, you deserve a research home, an intellectual crossroads that is as collaborative and inclusive and revolutionary as the work itself. This center will be that home,” said Wallis Annenberg, vice president of the Annenberg Foundation, which donated $25 million to build the center. Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., a life trustee of Caltech, recently awarded $1 million to the project. Caltech hopes to raise a total of $31.5 million.

The 50,000-square-foot building will contain an 80-seat lecture hall, several small classrooms, an instructional computer lab, and studio and office space for faculty and students. The center will also feature atrium and lounge spaces to promote collaboration and interaction. The building’s exterior is mostly glass, with a window in nearly every room, connecting the structure with the campus, said Frederick Fisher, the principal architect.

The center will also herald a new information-based curriculum at Caltech, and possibly beyond. “The dream is very vivid in my mind,” said Jehoshua “Shuki” Bruck, the Gordon and Betty Moore Professor of Computation and Neural Systems and Electrical Engineering and founding director of the Information Science and Technology initiative. One day, he hopes, information will be taught in schools and universities alongside traditional subjects like history or physics.

The Annenberg Center aims for a Silver rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. Slated for completion in the summer of 2009, it will be one of three new LEED-rated buildings on campus. —JP/MW