SmithGroup

Academic Building One (ABO) signals a new era for Virginia Tech in the Washington, DC area, redefining a twenty-first century campus, while expanding the land grant university’s range and impact. The LEED Platinum-pending building is home to the Institute for Advanced Computing and houses state-of-the-art and next-gen technology programs in the computer science and computer engineering fields, creating a teaching and research facility with dedicated collaboration spaces for academic and industry partnerships.

With the project’s cutting-edge technology curriculum in mind, the team employed advanced computational design techniques to explore more than 1,400 building massing options to arrive at a final form. The outcome is a high-performance, faceted structure optimized for energy efficiency, zoning, and occupant comfort, achievements only possible through this computational technology. Neurodiversity and biophilic principles inform the interiors, seamlessly blending the demands of computer science and engineering with humanistic elements to prioritize health and cognitive restoration.

ABO is a model for the next generation of academic buildings—human-centered, adaptable, and regenerative; filled with generous, glare-free daylight, powered by an energy-generating building skin, conditioned through quiet, high-efficiency hydronic systems, sustained by rainwater harvesting and living landscapes, and engineered to connect with future infrastructure such as Sewage Wastewater Energy Exchange networks.