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September 21, 2004
The Cooper Union School of Engineering,
Art and Architecture in New York’s Greenwich Village,
unveiled schematic designs for its new building last week.
Thom Mayne of Morphosis designed the new nine-story academic
building, which will house the school of engineering and the
school of arts and sciences.
The building will have a glass envelope surrounded by a metal
screen that will be operable by the occupants of the studios
inside. An atrium crisscrossed by glowing staircases forms
the core of the building both physically and conceptually,
and will also be visible through the building envelope. The
building’s elevators will only stop on every other floor,
so that students and faculty will be forced to take the stairs
in the atrium and interact with each other. “The students
and faculty become the façade,” Mayne says.
An exhibit at Cooper Union shows some of the design concepts
that Mayne went through after being selected for the project
in December. Several of the designs show that Mayne struggled
with the building’s preset envelope. “I was uncomfortable
with the New York idea of the setback,” Mayne says. “I
was trying to warp the shape.” Ultimately though, zoning
requirements kept Mayne from twisting the upper floors of
the building or hanging projections over the sidewalk. “Since
the envelope existed,” Mayne says, “the design became
entirely subtractive.”
Though the design has been presented to the Cooper faculty
and students, Mayne will continue to work on the design until
construction begins in 2006. He describes the process of presenting
his design to inquisitive architecture faculty and students
as being “like having your brain examined.”
Kevin Lerner
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