New York City Accepts Cornell University & Technion’s Bid for a Proposed Applied Science Campus Designed by SOM

New two-million-square-foot campus will be among the most technologically-advanced, energy-efficient academic hubs in the world

December 21, 2011 (New York) – Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cornell University President David J. Skorton and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology President Peretz Lavie announced Monday that the Cornell University-Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Consortium was selected to build an 11-acre Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) teamed with the institutions to design the proposed two-million-square-foot applied science and engineering campus, which will provide housing and academic facilities for up to 2,500 students. The Cornell/Technion consortium will also receive $100 million in City capital to assist with site infrastructure, construction, and related costs.

SOM’s design for the proposed campus dovetails with the consortium’s goals of preparing future tech leaders and entrepreneurs for the growth of 21st century businesses and industries. The design creates a place of work and research that will meet the collaboration, productivity, and creativity needs of future talent. The campus will be an iconic destination and meeting ground for entrepreneurs and scientists, with a multi-story pedestrian network, over a half-million-square-feet of public gardens and amphitheaters, a 150,000-square-foot photovoltaic array that would be the largest in New York City, and an interactive sustainability strategy that will boast one of the country’s largest net-zero energy structures. Indoor/outdoor connectivity between academic spaces and flexibility in the campus’s open plan will be key to attracting the best talent from around the globe and creating a citywide core for innovation.

The Partners of SOM had the following statement:

"New ideas demand new architecture. We have set out to design a school of enterprise as well as knowledge – an institution dedicated to the productive use of technology, not to the development of technology for its own sake. Keeping this mission in mind, we have designed a campus as bold in construction, look, and feel as it is in purpose. It will be a place of enormous intellectual and practical vitality, and, at the same time, a striking visual statement of the spirit of innovation and openness that defines New York City."

"This is a spectacularly rare opportunity to imagine a new campus from the ground up – and to do so in the heart of a great city. In terms of its urban design, architecture, landscape design and sustainable strategies, this campus will be an exemplar – a living, learning applied sciences community whose design supports and reflects the fundamental ideals of research and innovation."

The selection of the Cornell/Technion consortium marks a major milestone in New York City’s Applied Sciences NYC initiative, which seeks to increase New York City’s capacity for applied science and transform the City’s economy by creating tens of thousands of new jobs. An economic impact analysis completed by the NYC Economic Development Corporation projects the new campus will generate more than $23 billion in overall economic activity over the course of the next three decades and create nearly 600 spin-off companies.

About Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) is one of the leading architecture, interior design, engineering, and urban-planning firms in the world, with a 75-year reputation for design excellence and a portfolio that includes some of the most important architectural accomplishments of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since its inception, SOM has been a leader in the research and development of specialized technologies, new processes and innovative ideas, many of which have had a palpable and lasting impact on the design profession and the physical environment. The firm’s longstanding leadership in design and building technology has been honored with more than 1,500 awards for quality, innovation, and management. The American Institute of Architects has recognized SOM twice with its highest honor, the Architecture Firm Award – in 1962 and again in 1996. The firm maintains offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco,  Washington, D.C., London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi.