REJournals (Chicago, April 27) -- One of the nation’s highest performing teaching and research facilities has been named R&D Magazine’s 2016 Laboratory of the Year. Designed by SmithGroupJJR, the $95 million, 230,000-square-foot facility is the new home for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, which has a deep tradition of innovative faculty, hands-on classroom experiences and groundbreaking research that helped shape the modern world with the advent of transistors, integrated circuits, LEDs and plasma displays.