Cornell's Roosevelt Island Tech Campus Taking Shape

The first three buildings and first phase of development for the new Cornell NYCTech campus on Roosevelt Island have been revealed. Morphosis Architects is designing the largest building, which will include classrooms, labs, and collaborative educational spaces. Weiss/Manfredi Architecture is designing a hybrid educational and commercial incubator building on the Queens facing side of the island. Handel Architects are designing a tower adjacent to the Queensboro Bridge for student and faculty housing.

Morphosis' trapezoid building features a central core that aligns with 57th Street on the Manhattan Street grid.

The residential and incubator buildings frame another view corridor out to Queens.

A vast super structure supports a giant solar array, which will allow the building to produce as much energy as its occupants consume.

[see ElectricWeb | Blogger, April 24, 2013]

"Aligning with Cornell Tech’s interdisciplinary academic mission, the design merges site planning, building planning, engineering, and architecture into an integrated and performative solution," says the architect.

A ground floor cafe, accessible to the public, will help link the campus back to the more developed northern end of the island.

Weiss/Manfredi’s seven-story building, dubbed the “Corporate Co-Location Building,” will contain spaces for research and development projects for industry and the academy.

It too features a large rooftop solar array and is aiming for net-zero energy use.

The designer called the building “a flexible platform bringing industry and the academy together.”

The residential building is only in the schematic phase, but Handel Architects emphasized that there will be apartments of all sizes, from large faculty apartments suited for families, to modest studios for students. The building is expected to house about 550 people.

The project has the goal of creating a carbon neutral facility and strategies are being put in place to retain all storm water onsite.

Park space will total two and a half acres.

At the unveiling, the developers discussed plans to improve connectivity to the island, with a pedestrian and cyclist connection off the Queensboro Bridge and adding ferry service.

While the island’s population and activity will grow with these first three buildings, they are only the beginning. The full campus will eventually include five additional buildings, for educational use as well as private industry.

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