Center for Advanced Research and Technology

Clovis, California

Firm

tBP/Architecture

Client

Clovis Unified School District/Fresno Unified School District

Area

80,000 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$10,924,274

Completion Date

08/2000

The mission of the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART) is to provide a technologically advanced and integrated system for education that will foster innovation and creativity.
The interior organization is planned as a microcosm of the area. Just as the central civic core is skewed from the farm grid, the administrative area, entrance lobby and exhibit area are skewed from the laboratories.
The building is deep enough that the center of the building never receives light, so the building has been pierced with a large light monitor corresponding to the central organizing circulation spine.
The CART is now the dominant public facility that visitors will need to find; landscape gestures were used to signify and strengthen the new entrance.
The construction project for the center includes reconstruction of an existing 64,692-square-foot metal manufacturing/warehouse building with a basement into 11 laboratory environments. The laboratory focuses are agriculture , biotechnology, chemical technology, engineering technology, environmental technology, financial technology, information technology, manufacturing technology, multimedia technology, telecommunications technology, and logistic and spatial information technology.