Northwest Corner Building
The Northwest Corner Building (known previously as the Interdisciplinary Science Building, and Northwest Science Building before that, and casually as NoCo) has been destined by Columbia to fill the last remaining plot on the upper Morningside Heights campus. It was built over the Levien Gym, between Pupin Hall and the Havemeyer extension (Chandler Hall), as well as the last undeveloped portion of the Grove just north of Levien and west of Pupin. The project started on 19 March 2007 and first occupancy began in 2009.
Contents
Building description
The building is on the southeast corner of Broadway and 120th St, opposite Barnard's Nexus. It is considerably taller than neighboring Pupin and Chandler Halls, though it still connects to them via pedestrian bridges at multiple levels, similar to those connecting Pupin, CEPSR, and Mudd.
The 188,000 square foot building features a campus lobby, entrance to Levien Gym, Joe the Art of Coffee cafe, the Science and Engineering Library, a large lecture hall, several classrooms, faculty and administrative offices, and 7 floors of science and engineering laboratories.
Design
The lead architect is José Rafael Moneo, selected by Bollinger for his "extreme sensitivity to context". To that end, Moneo designed a building shorter than would have been allowed at the site and hid mechanicals that would have otherwise been stored on the roof.
The Northwest Corner Building is being designed by Moneo along with New York-based Davis Brody Bond with hope that it will attain a high rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.
The building announces a departure from the Mckim, Mead and White architecture that dominates many of the original campus building, and which served as the master plan for the campus since 1896. It does not, however, operate as a quick-fix in the architectural vein of Uris, Mudd or even CEPSR that lacked a significant architectural statement in hopes of placating a need for space.
A significant hurdle in the design was attempting not to interrupt with Levien Gym. As noted in a recent article[1] in the New York Times, the design consists of "three enormous parallel trusses in the lower part of the building. These take the weight of the laboratories, classrooms and offices above and distribute the load — almost as a tabletop would — to columns that flank, but do not penetrate, the basketball court.
This approach has created a column-free space directly under the trusses, which will be occupied by the library. The room will be almost transparent, with window walls overlooking the campus and Broadway. “For the first time, actual academic life will be visible from the street,” said Mark Wigley, dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Diagonal elements in the truss work and other structural bracing will be expressed clearly on the facade, giving the building its overall character.
In other words, it will not look like the red-brick buildings that have predominated since McKim, Mead & White drew up the master plan in the 1890s. But with so much steel in the science building, any brickwork would merely have been a thin cladding.
“When the brick is only a veneer,” Mr. Moneo said, “I don’t feel comfortable working with it.”"
Construction challenges
Bollinger also stipulated that the building show a commitment to embracing interdisciplinary science. In this vein, the building will be insulated to reduce the impact of vibrations from the subway on the laboratory spaces.
The greatest challenge facing the building's construction was the mandate it be built atop the school's underground gym, with no interruption in the gym's usability. In the 1970s, when Dodge Fitness Center was built, the Levien Gym was fitted with 4 super-columns at its corners, which would allow a building to be constructed above it without pesky additional columns. The Northwest Science Building was constructed on these super-columns, thus placing no weight on the Levien Gym roof, allowing it to remain open. Nevertheless, Moneo still had to employ truss construction to keep the building "floating" over the gym rather than resting on top of it, ensuring the basketball season could continue through construction.
History of the site
The Northwest Science Building was the source of the Athletics Facilities Scandal. In the early 1990s, the Athletics Department proposed an extension of Dodge for the site that would hold a teaching swimming pool, racquetball courts, and an international squash court. When the Athletics Director at the time, John Reeves, was unable to raise any money for construction, it was decided to use the site for a science building with a few floors for athletics. But when President Bollinger took office, Reeves's boss, Provost Jonathan Cole, "forgot" to tell PrezBo about the the plans. Cole decided to build a science-only building instead, without informing Reeves of the change in plan. Reeves found out when the Spectator broke the news about the building in 2004.
Building Name
When news of the building broke in 2004, the project was referred to as the Northwest Science Building. Shortly thereafter Interdisciplinary Science Building was adopted as the name for the project in order to reflect the building's purpose and function. However, in Fall 2009 the school renamed the project yet again to Northwest Corner Building, "in the hopes of attracting a wider array of donors."
See also
- Reactions on The Bwog
- February 23, 2007 statement from the Senate's physical development committee
- After name confusion, Northwest Corner Building construction proceeds on schedule
- NYT article on the challenges of the building's construction
- In Detail: Columbia U.'s Northwest Corner Building, The Architect's Newspaper, 3 June 2009
- Construction Timelapse Video, February 2008 - August 2010
- Glowing NYT Review of the Completed Building - Feb 2011
- Current Construction Projects - Aug 2011
