NKU's $50.8M Center for Informatics will allow study to spread to multiple disciplines

Drawings for Northern Kentucky University's new $50.8 million Center for Informatics show a state-of-the-art facility that the university that will serve as both a new home for the College of Informatics and as a gateway to the campus' West Quad.

The 110,000-square-foot facility, designed by lead architect Goody Clancy and local architecture firm McGill Smith Punshon Inc., is made up of a central Informatics Common and "digitorium", flanked on two sides by four-story loft-style academic buildings.

One enters through the Informatics Common, designed to serve as an intersection between the social and digital worlds contained within the center.

This space will house a "genius bar", complete with a multi-discipline technology help desk, research flex space, and a café.

Within the common is the two-story glass digitorium, the fully reconfigurable technological heart equipped with audio/visual technology using high-quality LED, digital projection, and intelligent digital displays that allow users to watch, interact with, create and share information.

The digitorium's transparent skin is designed to reflect the center's purpose by allowing those outside to witness human interaction, the most basic – yet most complex – of information sharing systems.

Lining these spaces is a pair of glass and metal lofts, with classrooms and labs arranged on the lower two floors, administrative functions housed on the third floor, and faculty offices on the fourth floor.

Construction of the Center for Informatics is expected to begin within the next two months, with completion occurring by July 2010.

The Kentucky legislature has approved $35.5 million for the new center, with the remainder being funded by a mix of grants and private, government, and corporate funding.

NKU's College of Informatics is one of less than a dozen nationally devoted to the study of informatics, and the university hopes that the new facility will help supply the skilled workforce needed for the region's information economy by attracting and retaining artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and scientists.

Currently a leader in Kentucky's e-health network through the modernization of the delivery of health care through technology, the college is looking to expand its study of electronic information to other disciplines.

Writer: Kevin LeMaster
Source: Northern Kentucky University College of Informatics
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