• Nanosystems Complex's Plans Take Shape
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    Nanosystems Complex's Plans Take Shape

    By VIC COX

    Large pieces are falling into place for the California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) project, the planned east campus site of research facilities focussed on the world of the very small. Today the site plan goes before the Campus Planning Committee for its blessing and referral to the UC Board of Regents for final approval.
    Last month, Gov. Gray Davis authorized the sale of bonds that would provide the state's $100-million share of the UCSB-UCLA joint venture into nanoscale science and engineering. Also set for state financing were the other three UC Institutes for Science and Innovation. These institutes' funding must be matched 2-to-1 with private industry dollars under the terms of the governor's original initiative in 2000.
    An initial study of the CNSI building, basically an environmental description of the project, and the companion parking structure, known as Campus Parking Structure 2, was also released last month by the Office of Budget and Planning. The study sketches a three-story, rectangular nanosystems building with a gross floor area of more than 131,000 square feet situated at UCSB's east entrance where Highway 217 splits into Mesa and Lagoon roads.
    The $16-to $18-million parking structure, which is expected to hold more than 600 spaces, will rise three stories above ground. It will do more than replace the Lot 10 spaces lost to construction. A permanent food facility is planned for the south end of structure 2, the first time such a facility will serve the east side of campus.
    The structure will be oriented north-south while the CNSI sits at a northwest angle, providing a roughly triangular courtyard between the buildings. By early July, a Draft Environmental Impact Report on the site will be available, said Jennifer Metz, campus senior planner. A 45-day public comment period will follow.
    Near the service entrance at the northern end of the five-acre, Robert Venturi-designed CNSI compound, a Digital Media Auditorium and a couple of smaller rooms, one of which has been dubbed the Sphere, have been planned. On the Sphere's exterior wall will be banks of LEDs (light-emitting diodes), allowing a programmable audio-visual field that architect Venturi has described as "very much a communication medium for the Electronic Age."
    JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, chair of the Media Arts and Technology Program, and George LeGrady, Art Studio professor, have championed the melding of the arts and sciences in the CNSI complex. Though funding is not yet secured for the LED wall or the digital auditorium, their ideas and input have been integral to the Venturi firm's architectural concepts.
    "The arts," argues Kuchera-Morin, "have pushed the envelope in research that stretches the limits of abstract visualization and auralization of data," a critical element in conceptualizing a world invisible and inaudible to the human eye and ear.
    LeGrady suggests that the LED wall, which will be roughly 45 feet square, can function at times as a window into what institute scientists are doing, simply by connecting it to strategically placed Webcams and using scientific illustrations. Both artists believe that art can break down barriers between science and the public, if used with imagination.

    The California Nanosystems Institute site with its three-story parking structure near UCSB's east entrance also contains a planned Digital Media Auditorium and electronic wall (dotted lines denotes this latter area).