World Renowned Architect Cesar Pelli’s Firm to Design State-of-the-Art Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence

Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects & RATIO Architects, Inc. Join Forces to Build
42,000 Square Feet of Project-Based Learning Laboratories

Columbus, IN. The Community Education Coalition announces world renowned firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (PCPA), as the design architect for the new Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence (AMCE). The AMCE will serve as a state-of-the art education and workforce training center. It will serve students who pursue advanced manufacturing-related degree and certificate programs, leading to excellent careers in southeastern Indiana’s advanced manufacturing companies. President and founding principal of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, Cesar Pelli, said, “I am excited to be designing a building again for Columbus, Indiana; a city that I much admire and love. I am also very excited with the purpose the AMCE building will fulfill: to open for all in the region new and great opportunities for advancement through a very sophisticated educational program.” 

AMCE is a 42,000 square foot facility intended to house advanced manufacturing degree programs and work force training of Ivy Tech Community College, Purdue College of Technology, Indiana University Purdue University Columbus, and related high school programs serving the communities of southeastern Indiana. The center will be located on the educational campus in Columbus and will house shared integrated technology labs that are built around a curriculum of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). 

John Burnett, chief executive officer of the Community Education Coalition, said, “The center will connect directly to a network of integrated technology labs being developed in a 10-county region of southeast Indiana. The network has the potential to offer excellent STEM education to middle school, high school, college, and adult students near where they work and live. The degree and certificate programs coupled with the National Association of Manufacturers’ Dream It Do It career awareness campaign provides the right type of environment for the region’s nearly 570 advanced manufacturing companies to grow and prosper. Through these efforts they will be able to attract a qualified workforce today and in the future.”

In the early 1970’s, Pelli designed the original Commons and Courthouse Center, a two-block area bounded by Brown, Washington, Third and Fourth streets. (Although the Commons has been partially torn down, the Pelli designed super structure has been retained and the new building will honor Pelli’s original lines). “Columbus is very fortunate to have Cesar Pelli designing a new building in our community. He is one of the leading architects in the world at the height of his career, with a rich history of designing practical and beautiful academic buildings,” said Will Miller, chairman and chief executive officer of Irwin Financial Corp., and a member of AMCE’s architectural committee. 

RATIO Architects of Indianapolis will serve as the executive architect. William Browne, AIA, president and founding principal of RATIO Architects, said, “The Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence will pave the way for advancements in manufacturing careers throughout Indiana’s southeastern region. This project is a unique opportunity – to design a building that not only fulfills the needs of students, educators and companies, but also establishes an additional community and state asset. We look forward to collaborating with Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects to help the Community Education Collation achieve their goals.”

Jack Hess, programming chair for AMCE, noted, “AMCE will be truly unique in its form and its function. There are few such examples in the country that seamlessly weave together education, workforce, and business development services collectively focusing on a single economic cluster. The programming delivered within the facility will be tightly coordinated among the educational partners to move workers in the industry up one level in their education and training. By also providing technical assistance and workforce development programs specific to manufacturing within the same space, AMCE will be a true regional asset in creating the workforce of the future.”

AMCE will be built using grant funds provided by Lilly Endowment Inc. as part of the Economic Opportunities 2015 (EcO15) initiative. Two Bartholomew County organizations- the Community Education Coalition and Heritage Fund-the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County, provide leadership, oversight, and management support services for the regionally focused initiative. It seeks to create a truly regional system of lifelong learning whose objective is to move each person up at least one level in his/her education, training, job placement, and income. 

Sherry Stark, president and chief executive officer of Heritage Fund, said, “As a partner with the Community Education Coalition on the EcO15 project, we are delighted to see plans for AMCE moving forward in a first-class way. Cesar Pelli and his firm, working with RATIO Architects, will be a dynamic duo.”

The Cummins Foundation Architecture Design Program contributed architect fees to this project. “The Cummins Foundation is delighted to be a part of the Advanced Manufacturing Center Project. The design work by Mr. Pelli contributes to a growing collection of renowned buildings at the Columbus campus and keeps the Columbus legacy of ‘different by design’ moving forward,” said, Tracy Souza, executive director- Cummins Corporate Responsibility. 

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About Community Education Coalition: 
The Community Education Coalition (www.educationcoalition.com) is a not for profit organization that brings together education, business and community stakeholders to align and integrate a community learning system. Specifically, CEC works to promote the efficient and successful integration of education, economic vitality and quality of life programming. Over the past few years, the CEC and its partners have established the Columbus Learning Center, a state-of-the-art 130,000 square foot educational facility that provides shared classroom, lab and library space to Ivy Tech Community College, Purdue College of Technology, Indiana University Purdue University Columbus, WorkOne, and related high school programs. CEC also -secured funding for expanded post-secondary education and training programs; assisted in the development of K-12 school programming; and has funded initiatives that support the development of pre-kindergarten children.

About Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects:
Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (www.pcparch.com) was founded in 1977 by Cesar Pelli and Fred Clarke in New Haven, Conn. Its designs include some of the world’s most recognizable buildings: the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; the World Financial Center in New York; and the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong. The firm’s work is known for its wide range of materials and design solutions that respond to each building’s location and purpose, with examples ranging from the tiered stone shapes of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami to the loft-like spaces of the Minneapolis Central Library and from the swooping structure of stainless steel tubes that marks the entrance to the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Osaka, Japan to the dramatically curved glass curtain wall of the Malone Engineering Center at Yale University. Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects has received more than two hundred design awards including the 1989 Firm Award, the highest honor for an architecture firm from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In 1991, the AIA listed Cesar Pelli among the then most influential living American architects. In 1995, he received the Gold Medal, the AIA’s highest honor for an individual. From 1977 to 1984, he served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture.

About RATIO Architects Inc.:
RATIO Architects Inc. was founded in 1982 in Indianapolis, on the principles of reason and proportion. Originally focused on historic preservation and interior design, RATIO has evolved into an award-winning, multi-disciplinary design and planning firm. As RATIO has matured as an organization, it is “focused on the founding principles of successful design: embrace a design ideal that combines creativity, speed and functionality, while offering a dynamic and fun process for our clients.” Some notable design projects by RATIO in the Columbus area include the renovation and new sanctuary addition to St. Bartholomew’s Roman Catholic Church as well as the renovation to the former Arvin Industries World Headquarters that now serves as the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. headquarters. RATIO is currently working with nationally-known architect William Rawn & Associates on the design of the Mill Race Senior Center.

About Heritage Fund- the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County:
Heritage Fund—the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County was formed in 1976 to provide an opportunity for people, businesses and organizations to make gifts and establish charitable funds to benefit the local community. It was created primarily to provide responsible stewardship of gifts donated for broad charitable purposes; to develop leadership to address community issues; to serve as catalyst for positive change in partnership with others; and to promote philanthropy broadly within the community.

About Lilly Endowment Inc.:
Lilly Endowment Inc. (www.lillyendowment.org) is an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Gifts of stock in that company remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment. It is, however, a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the wishes of the three founders, Lilly Endowment exists to support the causes of community development, education and religion. The Lilly family’s foremost priority was to help the people of their city and state to build a better life. Although the Endowment also supports efforts of national significance and an occasional international project, it remains primarily committed to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.