The Foglia Cen­ter for Advanced Tech­nol­o­gy and Inno­va­tion (CATI) at McHen­ry Coun­ty Col­lege (MCC) aims to expand the under­stand­ing of what ​“man­u­fac­tur­ing” real­ly means for stu­dents and the pub­lic. The cen­ter will serve as a show­case for both old and new tech­nolo­gies, skills, and trades. Pro­grams in weld­ing, heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tems, indus­tri­al main­te­nance, engi­neer­ing tech­nol­o­gy, con­struc­tion man­age­ment, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, met­al­lur­gy, and metrol­o­gy will fill the class­rooms and lab­o­ra­to­ries of the new center. 

MCC’s bucol­ic cam­pus has grown organ­i­cal­ly since its found­ing in 1967. The new cen­ter is locat­ed on the north-east­ern edge of cam­pus; nes­tled between green­hous­es, an access road, and park­ing lots. 

The build­ing design evolved from the under­stand­ing that stu­dents who take cours­es at CATI will like­ly go on to work in a vari­ety of man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties. Using these types of build­ings as inspi­ra­tion, lab­o­ra­to­ries and class­room spaces are unit­ed under one ​“pavil­ion” roof. 

The pavil­ion is orga­nized into two bars, one for dou­ble-height lab­o­ra­to­ries and anoth­er for class­rooms and sup­port spaces. Stitch­ing the pro­gram togeth­er is a series of cat­walks and open infor­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion spaces that weave through the build­ing, between the class­room and labs, and back to campus. 

The CATI will be a state-of-the-art facil­i­ty where McHen­ry Coun­ty res­i­dents will have access to equi­table career and con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, in addi­tion to being a bea­con for excel­lence in teach­ing, learn­ing, and train­ing, and attract­ing and retain­ing a tal­ent­ed work­force for the inno­v­a­tive local man­u­fac­tur­ing economy.

Client: Illi­nois Cap­i­tal Devel­op­ment Board/​McHenry Coun­ty Col­lege
Pro­gram: Man­u­fac­tur­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries and class­rooms
Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion: Designed to achieve LEED Sil­ver
Size: 50,000 sqft
Cost: $21,850,000

Col­lab­o­ra­tive Part­ners:
CCS Inter­na­tion­al (Cost Esti­mat­ing)
dbHMS (Mechan­i­cal, Elec­tri­cal, Plumb­ing, Tech­nol­o­gy, and Fire Pro­tec­tion Engi­neer)
Ori­on Engi­neers (Civ­il Engi­neer)
Thorn­ton Tomaset­ti (Struc­tur­al Engi­neer)
Thresh­old Acoustics (Acoustic and Audio/​Visual)