Academic Facilities

This project renovated the entire six story building totaling approximately 30,000 square feet at 3-5 Washington Place to house classroom space and the Department of Philosophy. The space houses a 120-seat University lecture hall on the ground floor, and the Philosophy Department on the upper floors, with offices for faculty and graduate students, administrative space, and seminar rooms. Architectural features include a “Tower of Light” interior staircase that vertically unites the six floors to facilitate collaboration and interaction among faculty and students, and varying effects of shadow and light, which echo Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book, Remarks on Colour.

Approximately 95,000 square feet on all eight floors of 19 West 4th Street/ 269 Mercer Street were completely renovated to house the Department of Economics and the Department of Politics. New spaces that support the academic programs include a lecture hall and classrooms, computer labs, seminar rooms, and faculty offices. Design features include the bold use of colors and materials to enliven the space. A u-shaped lobby creates an "internal street" as a visible and active presence that mimics the exterior street activity with meeting spaces, informal seating areas and discussion areas with blackboards and flat screen TVs.

This project renovated a 6,000 sf town home - a designated New York City Landmark that was built in 1836- to house the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House. The House is located at 58 West 10th Street in the heart of literary Greenwich Village, and is home to undergraduate and graduate writing programs. The space was designed to maintain the charm and character of the building while updating it with new air conditioning, electrical and technology systems to support the academic program. New faculty offices, seminar rooms and lounge areas take the place of what had been residential living areas.

This first phase of the Molecular Design Institute spans the 5th floor of the Brown Building on Washington Place. The research performed in this laboratory includes the design and synthesis of crystalline molecular materials and functional polymers. The "open plan" of this 8,000 square foot space maximizes efficient use of space and is designed to facilitate interaction and create synergy among NYU faculty, students, staff and visiting researchers. The interior open area is equipped with fume hood work areas, and is ringed with windowed offices and core facilities, including a clean room, shared equipment rooms, and a room for atomic force microscopy.

The Sosnoff Lounge on the first floor of the Kaufman Management Center at 40 East 4th Street was renovated to provide a 3,300 square foot common area, including a new food service area and comfortable seating. The contemporary design utilizes wooden slats strategically placed on walls, columns and ceilings to enhance the tiered soffits. The globe-shaped pendant light fixtures and metal mesh drapery draw attention to the soaring 30 foot high ceilings, which along with the windows lining the space, create an open, inviting atmosphere and an attractive visual experience for passing pedestrians.

Located at the southeast corner of Washington Square Park, the Jeffrey S. Gould Welcome Center greets and informs prospective students and their parents. Student campus tours begin and end at the Welcome Center, which provides kiosks for on-line access, information pamphlets, media displays, and wall maps of the University and its surrounding neighborhood. In addition, the Gould Center houses an Alumni Lounge and a gallery showcasing archival photos and records of University history, and is a welcoming home for returning alumni. The Center is designed as an inviting street level presence that engages passersby, and features high ceilings and expansive windows.

More than 20,000 square feet on the 4th Floor of the historic Puck Building on Lafayette Street were renovated for the Department of Sociology to create inviting space that integrates the historic elements of the building's architecture in modern spaces. The space features high, exposed vaulted ceilings, cast iron columns, brick walls and wood floors. Private spaces are linked through interior "streets" and warm community areas designed to facilitate circulation and interaction.

Located in a hub of University student life on the second floor of the Palladium Residence Hall at 133 East 13th Street, The Wasserman Center for Career Development provides undergraduate and graduate degree candidates and alumni with support for career planning, resume/letter preparation, and the employment search, and hosts a wide range of special events and programs. In a design that integrates input from students, prospective employers and the Center's professionals, this 20,000 square foot space houses interview and counseling rooms, meeting rooms, a large presentation room with integrated technology, open workstations for students, a computer lab and other support spaces, including a café, pantry, lounge and reception room.

The newly modernized fourth floor in the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Hall of Dental Sciences at First Avenue and East 24th Street encompasses 11,000 square feet of patient care space for the D.D.S. program. Four separate clinics were combined into one open clinic with 64 new dental chairs, lockers and X-ray machines, a central clean and dirty area for dental supply, and kiosks for small materials. This state of the art facility also provides new offices, an open reception and waiting area, and seminar room.

Designed to serve as a professional quality state-of-the-art recording and teaching facility, the 2,000 Dennis Riese Family Recording Studio on the 5th floor of 194 Mercer Street can accommodate 30 students in its control room, and 65 students or 35 musicians (in orchestral format) in the studio. The live room features sound absorbing interior wall finishes with wood accent panels and adjustable acoustical doors, diffusive ceiling elements for sound absorption, and an acoustically treated wood and slate floor designed to eliminate noise transmission. The control room is equipped with a professional 48-channel API Vision recording console, capable of stereo and 5.1 surround mixing, computer and analog based recording, and an extensive array of sound processing equipment.

A total of 4,400 square feet on the 6th floor of 4-6 Washington Place was renovated to create office and meeting spaces for the newly established Center for Soft Matter Research. The space houses 13 offices for faculty, research staff and visitors, which ring an oval lounge/work area for informal meetings and discussions. An adjoining conference room is separated by a large glass door that opens to accommodate large gatherings in the combined space.

In addition, a gut renovation of 4,500 square feet on the 8th floor of the Meyer Hall of Physics at 2 Washington Place transformed outdated laboratories into a state-of-the-art laser and chemical synthesis laboratory for the Center. The project created a chemical synthesis lab with six fume hoods, an open laser lab with six optical tables, multiple offices for research staff and a meeting area for the research team. In addition, the behind-the-walls mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems were replaced, and windows were installed to open up the exterior building walls.

The entire 8th floor of the Brown Building, totaling 8,000 square feet, was renovated to provide facilities for the Center for Comparative Functional Genomics. This interdisciplinary unit engages genomicists, bioinformaticians, systematists, and evolutionary biologists in studies of regulatory networks and how they have evolved to generate diversity across species. The design features a central "open plan" wet laboratory, with stations for bioinformatics research. The central lab area is ringed with windowed offices for the researchers, and with research support spaces that house a DNA microscopy suite, glasswasher and sterilizer, a computer server room, cold room, and climate controlled room.

The first floor of the Languages and Literature Building, totaling 6,000 square feet, was renovated to create a series of shared instructional facilities, and features a new exterior glass wall that brightens the busy intersection at 19 University Place and East 8th Street. The new lecture hall has 120 seats with an additional capacity of 10 loose seats along the tiered sides of the space. An audio-visual room at the rear of the space houses state-of-the-art electronic equipment and a lutron lighting system, which allows speakers to select from a variety of pre-set lighting scenarios. The computer lab has 20 stations for various instructional activities. The project also created an adjacent open lounge/reception area in support of the lecture hall.

This 10,000 square foot photography lab houses private color darkrooms and full-size teaching darkrooms for faculty and students, with teaching and production spaces interwoven throughout the lab to maximize student-faculty interaction. Other features that enhance the functionality and comfort of the lab include color-correcting lighting, new fresh air intakes, and increased exhaust ventilation.

This project renovated 75,000 square feet on four floors of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, located in the heart of the campus at 70 Washington Square South. The new Brine Library Commons encompasses two floors of completely renovated student spaces on Lower Levels 1 and 2 to create individual and collaborative reading and study areas, group study rooms, a refreshment area and lounge, a technology help desk, three computer classrooms and other services. The project also updated the Library's active reference center on the main floor, created the Mamdouha S. Bobst exhibition gallery adjacent to the atrium and renovated the state-of-the-art Barbara Goldsmith Preservation Department on Lower Level 1.

The Wagner Graduate School of Public Service occupies two floors totaling about 46,000 square feet in the Puck Building, a commanding 19th century landmark in the SoHo district. The space was designed to retain the building's signature openness -- a spectacular open loft space filled with exquisite architectural vestiges of its Romanesque Revival style. The reconfigured space consolidated all of Wagner's faculty, research centers, and administrative offices in one location for the first time in the school's history. The renovation created 39 faculty offices, additional offices for administration and research, student project rooms, a student lounge, and seven meeting/ conference rooms. The Puck space houses six research centers and institutes, the Office of Career Services Resource Room, an art gallery curated in partnership with the Steinhardt School's Department of Art & Art Professions, and the Wagner Works Café, a social enterprise partnership with Housing Works, New York City's largest HIV/AIDS service agency.

The new home of the Office of Strategic Assessment, Planning and Design reflects the core mission of the office to promote sound planning, efficient use of resources and innovative design at the University. A "wrapper" made of blackened steel, felt and rich wood trim transforms the long, narrow space that spans between Mercer Street and Broadway on the 8th floor from a uniform row of offices into a dynamic space for display and interaction. The device, a folded plane inserted along the central spine of the office, forms a barrier providing visual and acoustic privacy for the open office work stations, and pinup and display space for models and drawings. The design of the space demonstrates the kind of potential in strategic deployment of resources, and the benefit of using green design; virtually no demolition and minimal construction was required to achieve a stunning transformation of the space. The materials are made from renewable resources and do not degrade the indoor air quality. SAPD was pleased that the project was delivered on time and under the budget.