Cornell Tech’s Glassy Green Roosevelt Island Campus Revealed
Thursday, December 19, 2013, by Curbed Staff
Renderings by Kilograph
After finally getting the green light, Cornell just unleashed a slew of new renderings that show what its new Roosevelt Island tech campus will actually look like. At 2 million square feet, the glassy, sustainable, public-space-prioritizing project has tapped the brains of a long roster of respected city architects and firms: Morphosis’ Pritzker Prize-winning Thom Mayne; Weiss/Manfredi Architecture; Handel Architects; and Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Peruse through the images below to get a feel for the designs of 1) the first academic building, with aspirations for net-zero energy use; 2) the “tech walk” or central campus plaza; 3) the corporate co-location building (which will have students working side-by-side with entrepreneurs and tech-industry professionals); and 4) the first residential building, set to hold 350 units. To give a sense of the import of the project in the eyes of the city, and how victorious arriving at this stage must feel like, Mayor Bloomberg himself appears in the explanatory video full of scalies.
At a panel this morning, all of the architects, along with officials from Cornell, discussed the design philosophy and masterplan for the campus. The first three buildings, outlined above, are located at the northern end of the site, between the Queensboro bridge and the future James Corner-designed public green space. (An existing recreational facility sits directly to the north of the campus, semi-underneath the bridge)